CIRCULARIZATION TIME OF BINARY GALAXIES

Authors
JUNQUEIRA S DEFREITASPACHECO JA
Citation
S. Junqueira et Ja. Defreitaspacheco, CIRCULARIZATION TIME OF BINARY GALAXIES, The Astronomical journal, 108(5), 1994, pp. 1627-1632
Citations number
19
Categorie Soggetti
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Journal title
The Astronomical journal → ACNP
ISSN journal
00046256
Volume
108
Issue
5
Year of publication
1994
Pages
1627 - 1632
Database
ISI
SICI code
0004-6256(1994)108:5<1627:CTOBG>2.0.ZU;2-R
Abstract
We report the results of numerical experiments performed to study the orbital circularization time of binary galaxies. We find that the time scale is quite long (larger than the Hubble time), confirming earlier calculations. The results depend on the initial conditions. From our simulations we obtained a fitting formula for the circularization time as a function of the initial orbital parameters like the pericentric distance, mass ratio, and eccentricity.