A novel formulation by Lagrangian variational principle for rotational equilibria: towards multidimensional stellar evolutions

Abstract

Abstract We have developed a new formulation to obtain self-gravitating, axisymmetric configurations in permanent rotation. The formulation is based on the Lagrangian variational principle, and treats not only barotropic but also baroclinic equations of state, for which angular momentum distributions are not necessarily cylindrical. We adopt a Monte Carlo technique, which is analogous to those employed in other fields, e.g. nuclear physics, in minimizing the energy functional, which is evaluated on a triangulated mesh. This Letter is a proof of principle and detailed comparisons with existing results will be reported in the sequel, but some test calculations are presented, in which we have achieved an error of O(10−4) in the virial relation. We have in mind the application of this method to two-dimensional calculations of the evolutions of rotating stars, for which the Lagrangian formulation is best suited.