Kinetic properties of fractal stellar media

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2017-01, Vol.464 (3), p.2777-2777
• Main Authors: Chumak, O V, Rastorguev, A S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Approximation; Astrophysics; Diffusion; Dynamics; Fractal analysis; Fractals; Kinetics; Mathematical analysis; Media; Parameters; Star & galaxy formation
• ISSN: 0035-8711; 1365-2966
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2538

Kinetic processes in fractal stellar media are analysed in terms of the approach developed in our earlier paper involving a generalization of the nearest neighbour and random force distributions to fractal media. Diffusion is investigated in the approximation of scale-dependent conditional density based on an analysis of the solutions of the corresponding Langevin equations. It is shown that kinetic parameters (time-scales, coefficients of dynamic friction, diffusion, etc.) for fractal stellar media can differ significantly both qualitatively and quantitatively from the corresponding parameters for a quasi-uniform random media with limited fluctuations. The most important difference is that in the fractal case, kinetic parameters depend on spatial scalelength and fractal dimension of the medium studied. A generalized kinetic equation for stellar media (fundamental equation of stellar dynamics) is derived in the Fokker-Planck approximation with the allowance for the fractal properties of the spatial stellar density distribution. Also derived are its limit forms that can be used to describe small departures of fractal gravitating medium from equilibrium.