title: Self-gravitating Brownian systems and bacterial populations with two or more types of particles.
abstract: We study the thermodynamical properties of a self-gravitating gas with two or more types of particles. Using the method of linear series of equilibria, we determine the structure and stability of statistical equilibrium states in both microcanonical and canonical ensembles. We show how the critical temperature (Jeans instability) and the critical energy (Antonov instability) depend on the relative mass of the particles and on the dimension of space. We then study the dynamical evolution of a multicomponent gas of self-gravitating Brownian particles in the canonical ensemble. Self-similar solutions describing the collapse below the critical temperature are obtained analytically. We find particle segregation, with the scaling profile of the slowest collapsing particles decaying with a nonuniversal exponent that we compute perturbatively in different limits. These results are compared with numerical simulations of the two-species Smoluchowski-Poisson system. Our model of self-attracting Brownian particles also describes the chemotactic aggregation of a multi-species system of bacteria in biology.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique Théorique (UMR 5152 du CNRS), Université Paul Sabatier, 118, Route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 4, France. sopik@irsamc.ups-tlse.fr
authors.forename: Julien
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sopik
authors.forename: Clément
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sire
authors.forename: Pierre-Henri
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Chavanis
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics / Q000379:methods*; D002633:Chemotaxis; D015233:Models, Statistical; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics