Thermodynamics of gravitational clustering phenomena: $N$-body self-gravitating gas on the sphere ${\mathbb{S}}^3\subset {\mathbb{R}}^4$

Abstract

This work is devoted to the thermodynamics of gravitational clustering, a collective phenomenon with a great relevance in the $N$-body cosmological problem. We study a classical self-gravitating gas of identical non-relativistic particles defined on the sphere ${\mathbb{S}}^3\subset {\mathbb{R}}^4$ by considering gravitational interaction that corresponds to this geometric space. The analysis is performed within microcanonical description of an isolated Hamiltonian system by combining continuum approximation and steepest descend method. According to numerical solution of resulting equations, the gravitational clustering can be associated with two microcanonical phase transitions. A first phase transition with a continuous character is associated with breakdown of $SO(4)$ symmetry of this model. The second one is the gravitational collapse, whose continuous or discontinuous character crucially depends on the regularization of short-range divergence of gravitation potential. We also derive the thermodynamic limit of this model system, the astrophysical counterpart of Gibbs-Duhem relation, the order parameters that characterize its phase transitions and the equation of state. Other interesting behavior is the existence of states with negative heat capacities, which appear when the effects of gravitation turn dominant for energies sufficiently low. Finally, we comment the relevance of some of these results in the study of astrophysical and cosmological situations. Special interest deserves the gravitational modification of the equation of state due to the local inhomogeneities of matter distribution. Although this feature is systematically neglected in studies about Universe expansion, the same one is able to mimic an effect that is attributed to the dark energy: a negative pressure.

arXiv commentTo appear in J. Stat. Mech.: Theo. Exp

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