Lau, Jun Yan;
(2024)
Statistical mechanics of self-gravitating systems.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
It is widely known that the notion of maximum entropy states describing macroscopic steady-states for many-body systems does not apply for astrophysical systems. A theory of van Kampen modes contextualised to stellar systems is presented which captures fluctuations as solutions to the linearised Collisionless Boltzmann Equation (CBE). The CBE is elevated from an algebraic equation with derivatives in phase-space to a functional equation acting with functional derivatives, and finally a statistical mechanical theory defining ensemble averages in a physics-agnostic manner is presented and applied to self-gravitating systems. Correlation functions are computed from this theory that explain how gravitational dressing causes self-gravitating systems to depart from the maximum entropy state, and will be crucial to fully resolve the substructure found in the highly precise Gaia photometric data.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Statistical mechanics of self-gravitating systems |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10196986 |
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