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The Gravitational N-Body Problem

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Applied General Relativity

Part of the book series: Astronomy and Astrophysics Library ((AAL))

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Abstract

We now come to a relativistic formulation of the gravitational N-body problem which can be described exactly only in the frame of numerical relativity. In the general case not even the concept of a ‘body’ can be formulated rigorously because of the non-linearities of GR (the distinction between ‘self- and external-field’ of a body is a real problem).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of planetary geodesy, Lohrmann-Observatory, Dresden, Germany

    Michael H. Soffel

  2. Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Wen-Biao Han

Authors
  1. Michael H. Soffel
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  2. Wen-Biao Han
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Soffel, M.H., Han, WB. (2019). The Gravitational N-Body Problem. In: Applied General Relativity. Astronomy and Astrophysics Library. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19673-8_10

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