Published under the auspices of the Royal Astronomical Society, this volume contains a set of extensive school tested lectures, with the aim to give a coherent and thorough background knowledge of the subject and to introduce the latest developments in N-body computational astrophysics.

The topics cover a wide range from the classical few-body problem with discussions of resonance, chaos and stability to realistic modelling of star clusters as well as descriptions of codes, algorithms and special hardware for N-body simulations.

This collection of topics, related to the gravitational N-body problem, will prove useful to both students and researchers in years to come.

Inhalt

Direct N-Body Codes.- Regular Algorithms for the Few-Body Problem.- Resonance, Chaos and Stability: The Three-Body Problem in Astrophysics.- Fokker-planck Treatment of Collisional Stellar Dynamics.- Monte-Carlo Models of Collisional Stellar Systems.- Particle-Mesh Technique and Superbox.- Dynamical Friction.- Initial Conditions for Star Clusters.- Stellar Evolution.- N-Body Stellar Evolution.- Binary Stars.- N - Body Binary Evolution.- The Workings of a Stellar Evolution Code.- Realistic N - Body Simulations of Globular Clusters.- Parallelization, Special Hardware and Post-Newtonian Dynamics in Direct N - Body Simulations.- Educational N - Body Websites.