Analytic Model of a Star Cluster that Includes Potential Escapers

Kathryne Daniel, Johns Hopkins
Advisors: Douglas Heggie and Anna-Lisa Varri

Abstract: A "potential escaper" is a cluster star that has orbital energy greater than the escape energy, and yet, is in a stable orbit. Analytic models of stellar clusters typically have a truncation energy that explicitly excludes these high energy stars. The aim of this study is to build a self-consistent model that includes potential escapers. We present our initial exploration into predicting the orbital stability for potential escapers in terms of approximate integrals of motion. As a first approximation, we assume a constant distribution function and are able to write an expression for the associated density using the region of stability to define the limits of integration for the 0th order moment. In future work we will numerically calculate a self-consistent model that includes potential escapers.

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