A survey and comparison of various models of gravitational dynamical friction
Journal: cIRcle (University of British Columbia)
Year: 2010

Under certain circumstances, a massive object travelling through a medium may experience a net average deceleration due to the gravitational interaction between it and the medium. This slowing down effect is called dynamical friction. There are a variety of ways in which dynamical friction may be modeled, depending primarily on the nature of the medium, and on what approximations are deemed to be reasonable. This thesis is devoted to reviewing the various models, with an emphasis on the assumpti