title: Long-term evolution of stellar self-gravitating systems away from thermal equilibrium: connection with nonextensive statistics.
abstract: With particular attention to the recently postulated introduction of a nonextensive generalization of Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics, we study the long-term stellar dynamical evolution of self-gravitating systems on time scales much longer than the two-body relaxation time. In a self-gravitating N-body system confined in an adiabatic wall, we show that the quasiequilibrium sequence arising from the Tsallis entropy, so-called stellar polytropes, plays an important role in characterizing the transient states away from the Boltzmann-Gibbs equilibrium state.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for the Early Universe, School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Taruya
authors.forename: Masa-aki
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Sakagami