Gravitational collapse and ergodicity in confined gravitational systems

The ergodic properties of many-body systems with repulsive-core interactions are the basis of classical statistical mechanics and are well established. This is not the case for systems of purely-attractive or gravitational particles. Here we consider two examples, (i) a family of one-dimensional systems with attractive power-law interactions, | x(i) - x(j) |(nu), nu > 0, and (ii) a system of N gravitating particles confined to a finite compact domain. For ( i) we deduce from the numerically-computed Lyapunov spectra that chaos, measured by the maximum Lyapunov exponent or by the Kolmogorov - Sinai entropy, increases linearly for positive and negative deviations of. from the case of a non-chaotic harmonic chain (nu = 2). For 2 < nu <= 3 there is numerical evidence for two additional hitherto unknown phase-space constraints. For the theoretical interpretation of model ( ii) we assume ergodicity and show that for a small-enough system the reduction of the allowed phase space due to any other conserved quantity, in addition to the total energy, renders the system asymptotically stable. Without this additional dynamical constraint the particle collapse would continue forever. These predictions are supported by computer simulations.