Galaxies and Chaos

George Contopoulos (auth.), George Contopoulos, Nikos Voglis (eds.)3540404708, 9783540404705

Galaxies and Chaos examines the application of tools developed for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems to Galactic Dynamics and Galaxy Formation, as well as to related issues in Celestial Mechanics. The contributions collected in this volume have emerged from selected presentations at a workshop on this topic and key chapters have been suitably expanded in order to be accessible to nonspecialist researchers and postgraduate students wishing to enter this exciting field of research.

---

Table of contents :
Order and Chaos in Astronomy….Pages 3-29
Critical Ergos Curves and Chaos at Corotation….Pages 30-43
Stellar Dynamics and Molecular Dynamics: Possible Analogies….Pages 44-55
Waves Derived from Galactic Orbits. Solitons and Breathers….Pages 56-74
Discrete Breathers in Nonlinear Lattices: A Review and Recent Results….Pages 75-90
Chaos or Order in Double Barred Galaxies?….Pages 91-100
Jeans Solutions for Triaxial Galaxies….Pages 101-108
Nonlinear Response of the Interstellar Gas Flow to Galactic Spiral Density Waves….Pages 109-116
The Level of Chaos in N-Body Models of Elliptical Galaxies….Pages 117-125
Low Frequency Power Spectra and Classification of Hamiltonian Trajectories….Pages 126-136
Disk-Crossing Orbits….Pages 137-153
Chaos and Chaotic Phase Mixing in Galaxy Evolution and Charged Particle Beams….Pages 154-168
Motions of a Black Hole near the Center of a Galaxy….Pages 169-184
Weak Homology of Bright Elliptical Galaxies….Pages 185-200
Observing Chaos in Disk Galaxies….Pages 201-212
Observational Determination of the Gravitational Potential and Pattern Speed in Strongly Barred Galaxies….Pages 213-222
Observational Manifestation of Chaos in Grand Design Spiral Galaxies….Pages 223-234
Quarter-Turn Spirals in Galaxies….Pages 235-242
Dynamics of Galaxies: From Observations to Distribution Functions….Pages 243-262
Arp 158: A Study of the HI….Pages 263-270
Dark Matter in Spiral Galaxies….Pages 271-278
A SAURON View of Galaxies….Pages 279-285
Photometric Properties of Karachentsev’s Mixed Pairs of Galaxies….Pages 286-293
Spline Histogram Method for Reconstruction of Probability Density Functions of Clusters of Galaxies….Pages 294-301
Stars Close to the Massive Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way….Pages 302-312
Angular Momentum Redistribution and the Evolution and Morphology of Bars….Pages 313-326
Major Mergers and the Origin of Elliptical Galaxies….Pages 327-339
Dynamical Evolution of Galaxies: Supercomputer N -Body Simulations….Pages 340-347
Formation of the Halo Stellar Population in Spiral and Elliptical Galaxies….Pages 348-356
Model of Ejection of Matter from Dense Stellar Cluster and Chaotic Motion of Gravitating Shells….Pages 357-364
Direct vs Merger Mechanism Forming Counterrotating Galaxies….Pages 365-379
Pitch Angle of Spiral Galaxies as Viewed from Global Instabilities of Flat Stellar Disks….Pages 380-386
Collisionless Evaporation from Cluster Elliptical Galaxies….Pages 387-394
Chaos in Solar System Dynamics….Pages 395-411
Dynamics of Extrasolar Planetary Systems: 2/1 Resonant Motion….Pages 412-432
The “Third” Integral in the Restricted Three-Body Problem Revisited….Pages 433-441