The Dissipation of Planetary Filaments.

Abstract

An investigation is made of the forces acting on a cylindrical filament of stellar mat- ter produced by an encounter between two stars. It is shown that under rather general assumptions such a filament will expand under its own internal pressure much more rap- icily than it will lose energy either by radiation or by turbulent convection. A similar conclusion may be deduced for a thin ribbon-like filament produced by a grazing colli- sion. It seems probable that a stellar encounter will simply produce an extended gaseous nebula around one or more of the stars involved