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ABSTRACT We recently derived, using the density-of-states approximation, analytic distribution functions for the outcomes of direct single-binary scatterings. Using these outcome distribution functions, we present in this paper a self-consistent statistical mechanics-based analytic model obtained using the Fokker–Planck limit of the Boltzmann equation. Our model quantifies the dominant gravitational physics, combining both strong and weak single–binary interactions, which drives the time evolution of binary orbital parameter distributions in dense stellar environments. We focus in particular the distributions of binary orbital energies and eccentricities. We find a novel steady-state distribution of binary eccentricities, featuring strong depletions of both the highest and the lowest eccentricity binaries. In energy space, we compare the predictions of our analytic model to the results of numerical N-body simulations, and find that the agreement is good for the initial conditions considered here. This work is a first step towards the development of a fully self-consistent semi-analytic model for dynamically evolving binary star populations in dense stellar environments due to direct few-body interactions.
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The binary-forking model is a parallel computation model, formally defined by Blelloch et al., in which a thread can fork a concurrent child thread, recursively and asynchronously. The model incurs a cost of Theta(log n) to spawn or synchronize n tasks or threads. The binary-forking model realistically captures the performance of parallel algorithms implemented using modern multithreaded programming languages on multicore shared-memory machines. In contrast, the widely studied theoretical PRAM model does not consider the cost of spawning and synchronizing threads, and as a result, algorithms achieving optimal performance bounds in the PRAM model may not be optimal in the binary-forking model. Often, algorithms need to be redesigned to achieve optimal performance bounds in the binary-forking model and the non-constant synchronization cost makes the task challenging. In this paper, we show that in the binary-forking model we can achieve optimal or near-optimal span with negligible or no asymptotic blowup in work for comparison-based sorting, Strassen's matrix multiplication (MM), and the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Our major results are as follows: (1) A randomized comparison-based sorting algorithm with optimal O(log n) span and O(nlog n) work, both w.h.p. in n. (2) An optimal O(log n) span algorithm for Strassen's matrix multiplicationmore »