Treatment of realistic tidal field in Monte Carlo simulations of star clusters

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved Monte Carlo simulation method for star cluster evolution that accurately models external tidal effects, including star loss and galactic shocks, aligning well with direct N-body results.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel Monte Carlo implementation that incorporates realistic tidal field effects and complex orbital dynamics, enhancing simulation accuracy.

Findings

Good agreement with N-body simulations for mass and radius evolution

Effective modeling of star loss due to tidal effects

Applicable to clusters with up to 42000 particles

Abstract

We present a new implementation of the Monte Carlo method to simulate the evolution of star clusters. The major improvement with respect to the previously developed codes is the treatment of the external tidal field taking into account for both the loss of stars from the cluster boundary and the disk/bulge shocks. We provide recipes to handle with eccentric orbits in complex galactic potentials. The first calculations for stellar systems containing 21000 and 42000 equal-mass particles show good agreement with direct N-body simulations in terms of the evolution of both the enclosed mass and the Lagrangian radii provided that the mass-loss rate does not exceed a critical value.