Gravothermal oscillations in N-body systems

We performed a direct N-body simulation of a 3000-body equal-mass system to study the post-collapse evolution of globular clusters. After the initial collapse, we observed an expansion of large amplitude. During this expansion the temperature profile showed a temperature inversion similar to those observed in gas models and Fokker-Planck calculations, which suggests a gravothermal origin for the expansion. Thereafter, however, we observed only oscillatory behavior of small amplitude. (author)