Statistical mechanics and the gravothermal catastrophe
- 1 February 1981
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Journal of Mathematical Physics
- Vol. 22 (2), 348-351
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.524886
Abstract
Jensen’s inequality is applied to the canonical partition function of a self-gravitating system to determine the best independent particle potential. The inequality allows the stability to be analyzed very easily. We recover the results of Lynden-Bell and Wood for the onset of an instability in an isothermal sphere in a heat bath. Our eigenvalue analysis leads to results very similar to those of Horwitz and Katz, but we differ in the description of the l=1 perturbation.Keywords
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