5–7 Oct 2026
EPFL
Europe/Zurich timezone

Gravitational turbulence in stellar dynamics

7 Oct 2026, 10:40
40m
Bernoulli center (EPFL)

Bernoulli center

EPFL

GA 3 34 (Building GA) Station 5 CH-1015 Ecublens Switzerland Coordinates on Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/TSx44GXiANdZa9KB9
Oral presentation Main track Self-gravitating systems

Speaker

Sofia Flores

Description

Vector Resonant Relaxation (VRR), the collective reorientation of stellar orbits around a black hole, provides an interesting framework for studying turbulence beyond the plasma context. In this talk, I will present numerical simulations of VRR in the strongly turbulent regime and characterize the statistical properties of its fluctuations. I will focus on the emergence of cascade phenomena and the resulting power spectra, drawing connections with recent work on universal fluctuation spectra in collisionless plasmas. By varying the sharpness of the interaction kernel, I will explore how the turbulent state changes as the scaling of the long-range coupling (gravity) is modified, and discuss the emergence of critical behavior. More broadly, these results indicate that some aspects of turbulent cascades may be universal across a wider class of long-range interacting systems, from stars orbiting a massive black hole to liquid crystals and classical spins.

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