Instability of the GravitationalN‐Body Problem in the Large‐NLimit

We use a systolic N -body algorithm to evaluate the linear stability of the gravitational N -body problem for N up to 1.3 × 10 5 , 2 orders of magnitude greater than in previous experiments. For the first time, a clear N -dependence of the perturbation growth rate is seen, μ e ~ ln N . The e -folding time for N = 10 5 is roughly 1/20 of a crossing time.