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A Certain Discontinuous Markov Process in Stellar Dynamics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Werner Tscharnuter*
Affiliation:
Inst. für Theoret. Astronomie, Wien, Austria*

Extract

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The basic assumption in Chandrasekhar’s approach of statistical stellar dynamics (Chandrasekhar, 1942) is the postulate that a test star within a stellar system being stationary in the sense of collisionless continuum theory suffers random displacements in velocity space generated by the fluctuating part of the gravitational field in a manner that can be described in terms of a random walk. This is equivalent to the assertion that the increments of velocity are regarded as stochastically independent in disjoint time intervals. From this Chandrasekhar derived a diffusion process in velocity space.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1971

References

Chandrasekhar, S.: 1942, Principles of Stellar Dynamics, New York.Google Scholar
Feller, W.: 1966, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, Vol. II, New York.Google Scholar
Wielen, R.: 1967, Veröff. Astron. Rechen-Inst. Heidelberg, No. 19.Google Scholar