We study the eff ects of the external tidal fi eld on the violent relaxation phase of star clusters dynamical evolution, with particular attention to the kinematical properties of the equilibrium con gurations emerging at the end of this phase. We show that star clusters undergoing the process of violent relaxation in the tidal fi eld of their host galaxy can acquire significant internal di fferential rotation and are characterized by a distinctive radial variation of the velocity anisotropy. These kinematical properties are the result of the symmetry breaking introduced by the external tidal fi eld in the collapse phase and of the action of the Coriolis force on the orbit of the stars. This work has been completed in collaboration with Enrico Vesperini, Stephen L.W. McMillan, and Stephen E. Zepf.
The manuscript has been accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters, the preprint is available here.
Have a look at the visualization of our simulations, created in collaboration with the Advanced Visualization Lab, Indiana University, USA.
Snapshots of the simulations CD at two times close to the maximum contraction phase of the collapse.
Comments are closed.