Session LC42 - Phase Transitions and Critical Phenomena.
ORAL session, Tuesday afternoon, March 23
Knollwood Room A, Omni Hotel
We present recent developments in the study of an interacting gravitational system of concentric, spherical, mass shells. The existence of two distinct phases is predicted from mean field theory. We report the results of dynamical simulations carried out under the conditions of constant energy (microcanonical ensmble), constant temperature (canonical ensemble with energy exchange with a reservoir) and constant chemical potential (grand canonical ensemble with both particle and energy exchange). Both simulations and theory predict that, in contrast to chemical systems, the physics of each environment is different. We describe the simulation results and compare them with the theoretical predictions.