Statistical mechanics of the self-gravitating gas: II. Local physical magnitudes and fractal structures

Abstract

We complete our study of the self-gravitating gas by computing the fluctuations around the saddle point solution for the three statistical ensembles (grand canonical, canonical and microcanonical). Although the saddle point is the same for the three ensembles, the fluctuations change from one ensemble to the other. The zeroes of the small fluctuations determinant determine the position of the critical points for each ensemble. This yields the domains of validity of the mean field approach. Only the S-wave determinant exhibits critical points. Closed formulae for the S- and P-wave determinants of fluctuations are derived. The local properties of the self-gravitating gas in thermodynamic equilibrium are studied in detail. The pressure, energy density, particle density and speed of sound are computed and analyzed as functions of the position. The equation of state turns out to be locally p( r → )=Tρ V( r → ) as for the ideal gas. Starting from the partition function of the self-gravitating gas, we prove in this microscopic calculation that the hydrostatic description yielding locally the ideal gas equation of state is exact in the N=∞ limit. The dilute nature of the thermodynamic limit ( N∼ L→∞ with N/ L fixed) together with the long range nature of the gravitational forces play a crucial role in obtaining such ideal gas equation. The self-gravitating gas being inhomogeneous, we have PV/[ NT]= f( η)⩽1 for any finite volume V. The inhomogeneous particle distribution in the ground state suggests a fractal distribution with Haussdorf dimension D, D is slowly decreasing with increasing density, 1< D<3. The average distance between particles is computed in Monte Carlo simulations and analytically in the mean field approach. A dramatic drop at the phase transition is exhibited, clearly illustrating the properties of the collapse.