In this Letter, we investigate the stability of the statistical equilibrium of spherically symmetric collisionless self-gravitating systems. By calculating the second variation of the entropy, we find that perturbations of the relevant physical quantities should be classified as long- and shortrange perturbations, which correspond to the long- and short-range relaxation mechanisms, respectively. We show that the statistical equilibrium states of self-gravitating systems are neither maximum nor minimum, but complex saddle-point entropy states, and hence differ greatly from the case of ideal gas. Violent relaxation should be divided into two phases. The first phase is the entropy-production phase, while the second phase is the entropy-decreasing phase. We speculate that the second-phase violent relaxation may just be the long-wave Landau damping, which would work together with short-range relaxations to keep the system equilibrated around the saddle-point entropy states. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2011 RAS.
CITATION STYLE
He, P., & Kang, D. B. (2011). Saddle-point entropy states of equilibrated self-gravitating systems. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 414(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3933.2011.01046.x
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.