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    • Statistical mechanics of gravitating systems ... and some curious history of Chandra’s rare misses!

      T Padmanabhan

      Volume 77 Issue 1 July 2011 pp 147-156

    • Fulltext

       

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      Permanent link:
      https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/pram/077/01/0147-0156

    • Keywords

       

      Antonov instability; isothermal sphere; dynamical friction; negative specific heat.

    • Abstract

       

      Chandra’s academic life had several phases each culminating in a monograph describing that subject. I shall deal with aspects of his work in the two earliest phases. I shall describe the overall structure of statistical mechanics of gravitating systems, the relevance of isothermal sphere in the mean-field approximation and issues related to collisional relaxation and dynamical friction in self-gravitating system of particles. There are several curious features in the history of these topics which I comment upon.

    • Author Affiliations

       

      T Padmanabhan1

      1. Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411 007, India

    • Dates

       
      Published
      July 2011

  • Pramana – Journal of Physics | News

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      Posted on July 25, 2019

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