Galactic Dynamics

by Binney, James

• ISBN13: 9780691130262
• ISBN10: 0691130264
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-07
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Since it was first published in 1987,Galactic Dynamicshas become the most widely used advanced textbook on the structure and dynamics of galaxies and one of the most cited references in astrophysics. Now, in this extensively revised and updated edition, James Binney and Scott Tremaine describe the dramatic recent advances in this subject, makingGalactic Dynamicsthe most authoritative introduction to galactic astrophysics available to advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers. Every part of the book has been thoroughly overhauled, and many sections have been completely rewritten. Many new topics are covered, including N-body simulation methods, black holes in stellar systems, linear stability and response theory, and galaxy formation in the cosmological context. Binney and Tremaine, two of the world's leading astrophysicists, use the tools of theoretical physics to describe how galaxies and other stellar systems work, succinctly and lucidly explaining theoretical principles and their applications to observational phenomena. They provide readers with an understanding of stellar dynamics at the level needed to reach the frontiers of the subject. This new edition of the classic text is the definitive introduction to the field.

Author Biography

James Binney is professor of physics at the University of Oxford. His books include "Galactic Astronomy". Scott Tremaine is the Richard Black Professor of Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Both are fellows of the Royal Society.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
An overview of the observations	p. 5
Collisionless systems and the relaxation time	p. 33
The relaxation time	p. 34
The cosmological context	p. 37
Potential Theory	p. 55
General results	p. 56
The potential-energy tensor	p. 59
Spherical systems	p. 60
Potential-density pairs for attened systems	p. 72
Multipole expansion	p. 78
The potentials of spheroidal and ellipsoidal systems	p. 83
The potentials of disks	p. 96
The potential of our Galaxy	p. 110
Potentials from functional expansions	p. 118
Poisson solvers for N-body codes	p. 122
The Orbits of Stars	p. 142
Orbits in static spherical potentials	p. 143
Orbits in axisymmetric potentials	p. 159
Orbits in planar non-axisymmetric potentials	p. 171
Numerical orbit integration	p. 196
Angle-action variables	p. 211
Slowly varying potentials	p. 237
Perturbations and chaos	p. 243
Orbits in elliptical galaxies	p. 262
Equilibria of Collisionless Systems	p. 274
The collisionless Boltzmann equation	p. 275
Jeans theorems	p. 283
DFs for spherical systems	p. 287
DFs for axisymmetric density distributions	p. 312
DFs for razor-thin disks	p. 329
Using actions as arguments of the DF	p. 333
Particle-based and orbit-based models	p. 338
The Jeans and virial equations	p. 347
Stellar kinematics as a mass detector	p. 365
The choice of equilibrium	p. 376
Stability of Collisionless Systems	p. 394
Introduction	p. 394
The response of homogeneous systems	p. 401
General theory of the response of stellar systems	p. 417
The energy principle and secular stability	p. 423
The response of spherical systems	p. 432
The stability of uniformly rotating systems	p. 439
Disk Dynamics and Spiral Structure	p. 456
Fundamentals of spiral structure	p. 458
Wave mechanics of differentially rotating disks	p. 481
Global stability of differentially rotating disks	p. 505
Damping and excitation of spiral structure	p. 518
Bars	p. 528
Warping and buckling of disks	p. 539
Kinetic Theory	p. 554
Relaxation processes	p. 555
General results	p. 559
The thermodynamics of self-gravitating systems	p. 567
The Fokker Planck approximation	p. 573
The evolution of spherical stellar systems	p. 596
Summary	p. 633
Collisions and Encounters of Stellar Systems	p. 639
Dynamical friction	p. 643
High-speed encounters	p. 655
Tides	p. 674
Encounters in stellar disks	p. 685
Mergers	p. 695
Galaxy Formation	p. 716
Linear structure formation	p. 717
Nonlinear structure formation	p. 733
N-body simulations of clustering	p. 751
Star formation and feedback	p. 760
Conclusions	p. 765
Useful numbers	p. 770
Mathematical background	p. 771
Special functions	p. 785
Mechanics	p. 792
Delaunay variables for Kepler orbits	p. 805
Fluid mechanics	p. 807
Discrete Fourier transforms	p. 818
The Antonov Lebovitz theorem	p. 822
The Doremus Feix Baumann theorem	p. 823
Angular-momentum transport in disks	p. 825
Derivation of the reduction factor	p. 830
The diffusion coefficients	p. 833
The distribution of binary energies	p. 838
References	p. 842
Index	p. 857
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