The Virial Theorem

Adapted from

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/virial.html

by John Baez

Suppose you have a nite colelction of point particles interacting

gravitationally, and suppose that:

1. The time averages of the total kinetic energy and the total potential energy are well-dened 2. The positions and velocities of the particles are bounded for all time Then,

< T >=
where

1 <U > 2 T
and similarly for

<T >

is the time average of the total kinetic energy

< U >.

For example, out in space, very often a bunch of particles will collapse to form a gravitationally bound system. If the system is roughly in equilibrium so the time averages of kinetic and potential energy are close 1 to their current values, the virial theorem implies that T = U . This lets you nd the masses of bound 2 systems, and in fact, it is the reason that we think dark matter exists.

The Simplest Example

the light one has mass potential energy is:

l and the heavy one has mass

Let's consider the simplest possible case: a single light particle in circular orbit around a heavy one. Say

M.

And suppose the orbit has radius

R.

Then the

U =

GmM R GmM R2

(1)

To gure out the kinetic energy, remember that the gravitational force is:

Fgrav =
while the centripetal force is:

Fcentrip =

mv 2 R

In a circular orbit, these counteract each other perfectly, so we must have:

mv 2 GmM = R R2
Thus, the kinetic energy of the light particle is:

T =
Comparing (1) and (2), we see that:

mv 2 GmM = 2 2R

(2)

while the kinetic energy of the heavy one is neglible.

1 T = U, 2
just as the virial theorem says!

Proof

Consider a quantity called the virial:

G=
that is, the sum over all the particles A little calculation shows that:

p r ,

of the dot product of each particle's momentum with its position. dG = 2T + F r dt

where

is the total force exerted on the particle

Integrade both sides from time 0 to side, we get:

t,

then divide by

. t.

Now let's compute the time average of both sides. Then take the limit as

t .

On the left hand

t
since the function

lim

G(t) G(0) =0 t

G(t)

must be bounded. Thus, we obtain:

0=2<T >+<

F r > < T > is well-dened already. Why is it is caused by all the other particles,

at least if the time averages here are well-dened. We know that so we have:

that the other time average is well-dened? The force on the particle

F r =

U r
and

where

is the potential interaction between particles

Rewriting this a bit, we nd:

F r

= = =

<

U r + U r +

<

U r U r

<

<

U (r r )
and

<
where in the second step we switched dummy variables

on the second term. Now, since

is

proportional to the reciprocal of the distance between the particles

and

we have:

U (r r ) = U
therefore,

<

F r >=<

<

U >=< U >

so this time average is well-dened. We get, nally

0 = 2 < T > +U
or,

< T >=

1 <U > 2

Final Notes
period. proportional to

We note that if the motion of our particles is periodic, we don't need to average over all time, just one The virial theorem can also be adopted to other forcces! rn , then we get: Suppose the potential between particles is

U (r r ) = nU
and therefore,

< T >=

n <U > 2