Large gravitating gas clouds are central to several issues in astrophysics. This paper presents explicit equations of state for their thermodynamics. They are based on general forms proposed by Saslaw & Hamilton in 1984, completed by a Riemannian geometric approach to thermodynamics. I study a regime starting at the ideal gas state and analytic to a pressure about one-quarter that of a corresponding ideal gas. The end of this analytic regime may be related to the problem of galaxy clustering, as evidenced by a comparison with density fluctuations in the distribution of galaxies.
展开▼
