English

New biorthogonal potential--density basis functions

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We use the weighted integral form of spherical Bessel functions, and introduce a new analytical set of complete and biorthogonal potential--density basis functions. The potential and density functions of the new set have finite central values and they fall off, respectively, similar to r(1+l)r^{-(1+l)} and r(4+l)r^{-(4+l)} at large radii where ll is the latitudinal quantum number of spherical harmonics. The lowest order term associated with l=0l=0 is the perfect sphere of de Zeeuw. Our basis functions are intrinsically suitable for the modeling of three dimensional, soft-centred stellar systems and they complement the basis sets of Clutton-Brock, Hernquist & Ostriker and Zhao. We test the performance of our functions by expanding the density and potential profiles of some spherical and oblate galaxy models.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0811.1538,
  title  = {New biorthogonal potential--density basis functions},
  author = {Alireza Rahmati and Mir Abbas Jalali},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0811.1538},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

8 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:40:03.928Z