Non-stationary Antonov self-gravitating layer: analytics and numerics

Large-scale instability of gravitating systems plays a key role in collisionless relaxation and in reaching a quasi-stationary state at the early stage of evolution. Advanced high-resolution methods and permanently increasing performance of computational systems allow this phenomenon to be studied by means of computer simulations at a new level. In this paper, an approach to verification and validation of computer codes implementing high-resolution methods is proposed. The approach is based on comparisons of the simulation results with exact non-stationary solutions of the Vlasov–Poisson equations. The evolution of the gravitating layer model is considered as an example of implementation of this approach. A one-parameter family of exact models of a non-stationary gravitating layer is described, and their stability to large-scale disturbances in the linear approximation is analytically studied. Non-linear instability development is computed with the use of the fifth-order conservative semi-Lagrangian WENO scheme.