Title:Numerical Experiments on the Nature of Relaxation in Dense Stellar Systems

Abstract:
Relaxation is considered to be the dominant process for the dynamical evolution of dense stellar systems. 
However, its relation to discrete events (such as escape from a cluster or fall into loss cone in a galactic 
nucleus), in particular the dependence of this relation on mass function and the size of the system is still 
poorly known. This uncertainty is the dominant factor that limits the applicability domain of Monte Carlo and 
Fokker-Planck simulations. In this talk, I will describe numerical experiments we performed to shed light on
this issue.