Collisionless Stellar Dynamics

Abstract

Collisionless Stellar Dynamics deals with Stellar Systems for times small with respect to the relaxation time. Thus it disregards completely individual encounters between stars. Our basic equation is the collisionless Boltzmann equation

$$ \frac{{\partial f}}{{\partial t}} + \bar v \cdot \frac{{\partial f}}{{\partial \bar x}} - \frac{{\partial V}}{{\partial \bar x}} \cdot \frac{{\partial f}}{{\partial \bar v}} = 0$$

(1)

Invited paper presented at the IAU Colloquium No. 10, in Cambridge, England.