Analytic Solution to the Dynamical Friction Acting on Circularly Moving Perturbers

We present an analytic approach to the dynamical friction (DF) acting on a circularly moving point mass perturber in a gaseous medium. We demonstrate that, when the perturber is turned on at t = 0, steady state (infinite time perturbation) is achieved after exactly one sound-crossing time. At low Mach numbers  ≪ 1 , the circular-motion steady-state DF converges to the linear-motion, finite time perturbation expression. The analytic results describe both the radial and tangential forces on the perturbers caused by the backreaction of the wake propagating in the medium. The radial force is directed inward, toward the motion center, and is dominant at large Mach numbers. For subsonic motion, this component is negligible. For moderate and low Mach numbers, the tangential force is stronger and opposes the motion of the perturber. The analytic solution to the circular-orbit DF suffers from a logarithmic divergence in the supersonic regime. This divergence appears at short distances from the perturber solely (unlike the linear-motion result, which is also divergent at large distances) and can be encoded in a maximum multipole. This is helpful to assess the resolution dependence of numerical simulations implementing DF at the level of Liénard–Wiechert potentials. We also show how our approach can be generalized to calculate the DF acting on a compact circular binary.