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The Boltzmann equation relates the equilibrium phase space distribution of stars in the Milky Way to the Galaxy's gravitational potential. However, observations of stellar populations are biased by extinction from foreground dust, which…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-12-05 Eric Putney , David Shih , Sung Hak Lim , Matthew R. Buckley

We present an approach to measure the Milky Way (MW) potential using the angular accelerations of stars in aggregate as measured by astrometric surveys like Gaia. Accelerations directly probe the gradient of the MW potential, as opposed to…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-12-22 Malte Buschmann , Benjamin R. Safdi , Katelin Schutz

A recent analysis of data from the ESA Gaia mission demonstrated that the kinematics of stars in the Milky Way can be modelled without invoking the presence of dark matter whatsoever. Indeed, the higher-than-Keplerian velocities observed in…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2022-04-12 Davide Astesiano , Sergio L. Cacciatori , Massimo Dotti , Francesco Haardt , Federico Re

Aims. Galaxy mass models based on simple and analytical functions for the density and potential pairs have been widely proposed in the literature. Disk models constrained by kinematic data alone give information on the global disk structure…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-10-05 D. A. Barros , J. R. D. Lépine , W. S. Dias

We present a new method for determining the Galactic gravitational potential based on forward modeling of tidal stellar streams. We use this method to test the performance of smooth and static analytic potentials in representing realistic…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-06-22 Ana Bonaca , Marla Geha , Andreas H. W. Kuepper , Juerg Diemand , Kathryn V. Johnston , David W. Hogg

We present a new theoretical population synthesis model (the Galaxy Model) to examine and deal with large amounts of data from surveys of the Milky Way and to decipher the present and past structure and history of our own Galaxy. We assume…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-07-27 S. Pasetto , G. Natale , D. Kawata , C. Chiosi , J. A. S. Hunt , C. Brogliato

We present a rigorous and practical way of constraining the Galactic potential based on the phase-space information for many individual stars. Such an approach is needed to dynamically model the data from ongoing spectroscopic surveys of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-07-10 Yuan-Sen Ting , Hans-Walter Rix , Jo Bovy , Glenn van de Ven

Vertical stellar kinematics+density can be used to trace the dark matter distribution [or the equivalent phantom mass in a Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) scenario] through Jeans equations. In this paper, we want to improve this type of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-12-16 Martin Lopez-Corredoira

We introduce a novel dynamical model, named empirical triaxial orbit-superposition model, for the Milky Way halo. This model relies on minimal physical assumptions that the system is stationary, meaning the distribution function in 6D…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-11-05 Ling Zhu , Xiang-Xiang Xue , Shude Mao , Chengqun Yang , Lan Zhang

We present an analytic method for rapidly forecasting the accuracy of gravitational potential reconstruction possible from measurement of radial peculiar velocities of every galaxy cluster with M > M_th in solid angle \theta^2 and over…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-07 Olivier Doré , Lloyd Knox , Alan Peel

We update the method of the Holmberg & Flynn (2000) study, including an updated model of the Milky Way's interstellar gas, radial velocities, an updated reddening map, and a careful statistical analysis, to bound the allowed surface density…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-06-22 Eric David Kramer , Lisa Randall

We present a new technique to constrain the gravitational potential of a galaxy from the observed stellar mass surface density alone under a number of assumptions. It uses the classical Eddington Inversion Method to compute the phase-space…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-02-19 Jorge Sanchez Almeida , Ignacio Trujillo , Mireia Montes , Angel R. Plastino

We introduce a potentially powerful method for constraining or discovering a thin dark matter disk in the Milky Way. The method relies on the relationship between the midplane densities and scale heights of interstellar gas being determined…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-09-30 Eric David Kramer , Lisa Randall

In a series of papers we study the stellar dynamics of the grand design barred-spiral galaxy NGC~1300. In the first paper of this series we estimate the gravitational potential and we give it in a form suitable to be used in dynamical…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-19 C. Kalapotharakos , P. A. Patsis , P. Grosbol

The escape velocity profile of the Milky Way offers a crucial and independent measurement of its underlying mass distribution and dark matter properties. Using a sample of stars from Gaia DR3 with 6D kinematics and strict quality cuts, we…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2024-02-02 Cian Roche , Lina Necib , Tongyan Lin , Xiaowei Ou , Tri Nguyen

We introduce the emPDF (Empirical Distribution Function), a novel dynamical modeling method that infers the gravitational potential from kinematic tracers with optimal statistical efficiency under the minimal assumption of steady state.…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-02-27 Zhaozhou Li , Jiaxin Han , Wenting Wang , Yong-Zhong Qian , Qingyang Li , Yipeng Jing , Ting S. Li

The Milky Way is a complex ecosystem, for which we can obtain detailed observations probing the physical mechanisms determining the interstellar medium. For a detailed comparison with observations, and to provide theories for missing…

The motion of the baryonic components of the Milky Way is governed by both luminous and dark matter content of the Galaxy. Thus, the dynamics of the Milky Way globular clusters can be used as tracers to infer the mass model of the Galaxy up…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-12-15 Saikat Das , Nirupam Roy

We present a new method for inferring the gravitational potential of the Galactic disk, using the time-varying structure of a phase-space spiral in the $(z,w)$-plane (where $z$ and $w$ represent vertical position and vertical velocity). Our…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2021-11-30 Axel Widmark , Chervin F. P. Laporte , Pablo F. de Salas

A suite of vast stellar surveys mapping the Milky Way, culminating in the Gaia mission, is revolutionizing the empirical information about the distribution and properties of stars in the Galactic stellar disk. We review and lay out what…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2013-12-04 Hans-Walter Rix , Jo Bovy