Related papers: Distribution functions for spheroids
I review the current status of dynamical modelling of dwarf spheroidal galaxies focusing on estimates of their dark matter content. Starting with the simplest methods using the velocity dispersion profiles I discuss the inherent issues of…
Context. In the Local Group, dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) and ultra-faint dwarf galaxies (UFDs) exhibit large velocity dispersions. These values are generally attributed to the presence of substantial amounts of dark matter (DM), in…
We demonstrate the existence of distribution functions that can be used to represent spherical massless cored stellar systems embedded in cuspy dark matter halos with constant mildly tangential velocity anisotropy. In particular, we derive…
Using high-resolution N-body simulations we study the stellar properties of dwarf spheroidal galaxies resulting from the tidally induced morphological transformation of disky dwarfs on a cosmologically motivated eccentric orbit around the…
Spherical stellar systems have weakly-damped response modes. The dipole modes are seiche modes. The quadrupole are zero pattern-speed prolate modes, the stable precursors to the radial-orbit instability (ROI). We demonstrate that small…
We have developed spherically symmetric dynamical models of dwarf spheroidal galaxies using Schwarzschild's orbit superposition method. This type of modelling yields constraints both on the total mass distribution (e.g. enclosed mass and…
Thanks to instrumental advances, new, very large kinematic datasets for nearby dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies are on the horizon. A key aim of these datasets is to help determine the distribution of dark matter in these galaxies. Past…
The Jeans equations give the second moments or stresses required to support a stellar population against the gravity field. A general solution of the Jeans equations for arbitrary axisymmetric scale-free densities in flattened scale-free…
We examine the stability of a low-mass stellar system surrounding a massive central object. Examples of such systems include the centers of galaxies or star clusters containing a massive black hole, and the Oort comet cloud. If the…
We investigate the matter distribution of a spiral galaxy with a counter-rotating stellar core, SDSS J1331+3628 (J1331), independently with gravitational lensing and stellar dynamical modelling. By fitting a gravitational potential model to…
The velocity distribution function (VDF) of the hypothetical Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), currently the most favored candidate for the Dark Matter (DM) in the Galaxy, is determined directly from the circular speed…
In this review, I discuss just three aspects of the stability and evolution of galactic discs. (1) I first review our understanding of the bar instability and how it can be controlled. Disc galaxies in which the orbital speed does not…
An iterative approach is used to construct spherically symmetric equilibrium models with an anisotropic velocity distribution. The potentialities of the method have been tested on models with known distribution functions, the…
We study analytically the coarse and fine-grained distribution function established by the self-similar infall of collisionless matter. We find this function explicitly for isotropic and spherically symmetric systems in terms of…
In a disc galaxy the distribution of azimuthal components of velocity is very skew. In the past this skewness has been modelled by superposed Gaussians. We use dynamical arguments to derive an analytic formula that can be fitted to observed…
The dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellites of the Local Group have long been thought to be simple spheroids of stars embedded within extended dark matter halos. Recently, however, evidence for the presence of spatially and kinematically…
Assuming the separable augmented density, it is always possible to construct a distribution function of a spherical population with any given density and anisotropy. We consider under what conditions the distribution constructed as such is…
The gravitational instability model of planet/brown dwarf formation proposes that protostellar discs can fragment into objects with masses above a few Jupiter masses at large semimajor axis. Tidal downsizing may reduce both the object mass…
We explore the stability of isotropic, spherical, self-gravitating systems with a double-power law density profile. Systems with rapid transitions between the inner and outer slopes are shown to have an inflection in their isotropic…
Astrophysical discs which are sufficiently massive and cool are linearly unstable to the formation of axisymmetric structures. In practice, linearly stable discs of surface density slightly below the threshold needed for this instability…