Particle modeling of disk-shaped galaxies of stars on nowadays concurrent supercomputers

Abstract

The time evolution of initially balanced, rapidly rotating models for an isolated disk of highly flattened galaxies of stars is calculated. The method of direct integration of the Newtonian equations of motion of stars over a time span of many galactic rotations is applied. Use of modern concurrent supercomputers has enabled us to make long simulation runs using a sufficiently large number of particles N=30,000. One of the goals of the present simulation is to test the validities of a modified local criterion for stability of Jeans-type gravity perturbations (e.g. those produced by a barlike structure, a spontaneous perturbation and/or a companion galaxy) in a self-gravitating, infinitesimally thin and collisionless disk. In addition to the local criterion we are interested in how model particles diffuse in velocity. This is of considerable interest in the kinetic theory of stellar disks. Certain astronomical implications of the simulations to actual disk-shaped (i.e. rapidly rotating) galaxies are explored. The weakly nonlinear, or quasi-linear kinetic theory of the Jeans instability in disk galaxies of stars is described as well.