Thermodynamic properties of an evaporation process in self-gravitating N -body systems

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By means of N -body simulations, we consider self-gravitating open systems enclosed in a spherical container with semipermeable reflecting walls, in order to investigate the thermodynamics of the evaporation process in self-gravitating N -body systems (such as the escape of stars from globular clusters). To simulate the evaporation process, when the energy of a particle exceeds a certain threshold value, the particle passes through the semipermeable reflecting wall freely. We show that the thermodynamic properties of the evaporation process, such as the dependence of the temperature on energy, agree well with those of stellar polytropes, if the system is in an approximate virial equilibrium state. However, in a lower-energy region or for a rapid evaporation process, the thermodynamic properties deviate from those for the stellar polytrope. Nevertheless, we found that a negative specific heat occurs even in the lower-energy region or for a rapid evaporation process. © 2010 The American Physical Society.
2010-08-17