Heat and Gravitation. II. Stability

Abstract

In this second article of a series we propose to base criteria of stability on the hamiltonian functional that is provided by the variational principle, to replace the reliance that has often been placed on {\it ad hoc} definitions of the "energy". We introduce a new virial principle that is formulated entirely within the Eulerian description of hydrodynamics, which allows a simpler derivation of a well known stability criterion for polytropic stellar configurations. Boundary conditions are based entirely on mass conservation.