N-body simulations of collisionless collapse have offered important clues to
the construction of realistic stellar dynamical models of elliptical galaxies.
Such simulations confirm and quantify the qualitative expectation that rapid
collapse of a self-gravitating collisionless system, initially cool and
significantly far from equilibrium, leads to incomplete relaxation. In this
paper we revisit the problem, by comparing the detailed properties of a family
of distribution functions derived from statistical mechanics arguments to those
of the products of collisionless collapse found in N-body simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 39th
Rencontres de Moriond, "Exploring the Universe," La Thuile, Italy, March 28 -
April 4, 200