Treatment of Binary Encounters in Stellar Dynamics.
Abstract
The goal of the present work is the development of a rigorous method of treating binary encounters within a gravitational system of n bodies. The approach is that developed by Levi-Civita to regularize collisions in the restricted problem of three bodies. An analysis of the instability which accompanies binary encounters is presented in terms of the solution to the problem of two bodies in regularized variables. A method is presented for regularizing a binary collision in the three dimensional problem of n bodies using the generalization of Levi-Civita's method by Kustaanheimo and Stiefel. Several numerical examples are presented for the planar problem of three bodies and one example involving 25 bodies is given. A method is also presented for the regularization of two or more binary collisions in the problem of n bodies. The relative merits of the methods are discussed, and numerical comparisons are made. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 10, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0721674
Entities
People
- C. Frederick Peters
Organizations
- Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division