Meanings
- not comparablenatural sciencesExpanding at an accelerating rate.
If measured early enough (lt;2 Myr in our simulations, or #92;sim20 crossing times), the velocity dispersion can be used to determine whether a region was highly supervirial at birth without the risk of degeneracy.
2016, Richard J. Parker, Nicholas J. Wright, “Dynamical evolution of star forming regions - II. Basic kinematics”, in arXiv3 more examples
For example, the 0.5-2 Myr old Orion Nebula Cluster ( ONC ), which is known to be supervirial with a virial mass about twice the observed mass ( Hillenbrand & Hartmann 1998 ), has already expelled its residual gas and is expanding rapidly.
2008, Johan Hendrik Knapen, T. J. Mahoney, Alexandre Vazdekis, Pathways Through an Eclectic Universe, page 6For many of the young (~10Myr) star clusters M_(dyn) >> Mₚₕₒₜ Goodwin & Bastian (2006) suggest that this is a signature of gas expulsion and the 'infant mortality' scenario discussed in Section 2.1, i.e., they conclude that these clusters are supervirial.
2010, Mark Gieles, “Star Cluster Disruption”, in Richard de Grijs, Jacques R. D. Lépine, editors, Star Clusters (IAU S266): Basic Galactic Building Blocks, page 75It is subvirial when Q < 1, which corresponds to a negative acceleration of the polar inertia moment, Ï < 0 (initial contraction) and supervirial when Q >1, which corresponds to a positive acceleration of the polar inertia moment, Ï > 0 (initial expansion).
2019, Roberto A. Capuzzo Dolcetta, Classical Newtonian Gravity:, page 57
Origin
Cite this entry
supervirial. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/supervirial
“supervirial.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/supervirial. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “supervirial,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/supervirial.
Source: supervirial on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.