title: Thermodynamics of self-gravitating systems with softened potentials
abstract: The microcanonical statistical mechanics of a set of self-gravitating particles is analyzed in a mean-field approach. In order to deal with an upper bounded entropy functional, a softened gravitational potential is used. The softening is achieved by truncating to N terms an expansion of the Newtonian potential in spherical Bessel functions. The order N is related to the softening at short distances. This regularization has the remarkable property that it allows for an exact solution of the mean-field equation. It is found that for N not too large the absolute maximum of the entropy coincides to high accuracy with the solution of the Lane-Emden equation, which determines the mean-field mass distribution for the Newtonian potential for energies larger than E(c) approximately -0.335GM(2)/R. Below this energy a collapsing phase transition, with negative specific heat, takes place. The dependence of this result on the regularizing parameter N is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Natural Sciences, University of Cyprus, P.O. Box 20537, Nicosia CY-1678, Cyprus.
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Follana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Laliena