Related papers: Phase space transport in cuspy triaxial potentials…
The gravitational potentials of realistic galaxy models are in general non-integrable, in the sense that they admit orbits that do not have three independent isolating integrals of motion and are therefore chaotic. However, if chaotic…
In the present article, we investigate the behavior of orbits in a time independent axially symmetric galactic type potential. This dynamical model can be considered to describe the motion in the central parts of a galaxy, for values of…
We used the N-body code of Hernquist and Ostriker (1992) to build a dozen cuspy ({\gamma}\approx 1) triaxial models of stellar systems through dissipationless collapses of initially spherical distributions of 10^6 particles. We chose four…
Orbits in the principal planes of triaxial potentials are known to be prone to unstable motion normal to those planes, so that three dimensional investigations of those orbits are needed even though they are two dimensional. We present here…
We study the motion of a spinning test particle in Schwarzschild spacetime, analyzing the Poincar\'e map and the Lyapunov exponent. We find chaotic behavior for a particle with spin higher than some critical value (e.g. $S_{cr} \sim 0.64…
In several previous investigations we presented models of triaxial stellar systems, both cuspy and non cuspy, that were highly stable and harboured large fractions of chaotic orbits. All our models had been obtained through cold collapses…
We consider the orbits of particles with spin in the Schwarzschild spacetime. Using the Papapetrou-Dixon equations of motion for spinning particles, we solve for the orbits and focus on those that exhibit chaos using both Poincar\'e maps…
Here I review recent work, by other authors and by myself, on some particular topics related to the regular and chaotic motion in elliptical galaxies. I show that it is quite possible to build highly stable triaxial stellar systems that…
Context. We have investigated the structure and kinematics of triaxial final models formed due to radial-orbit instability from a set of equilibrium anisotropic spherical systems of the Osipkov-Merritt type. Aims. We show that the…
This paper explores how orbits in a galactic potential can be impacted by large amplitude time-dependences of the form that one might associate with galaxy or halo formation or strong encounters between pairs of galaxies. A period of…
Statler (1987) demonstrated that self-consistent triaxial models with the perfect density law could be constructed for virtually any choice of axis ratios. His experiments are repeated here using triaxial mass models based on Jaffe's…
Celestial bodies approximated with rigid triaxial ellipsoids in a two-body system can rotate chaotically due to the time-varying gravitational torque from the central mass. At small orbital eccentricity values, rotation is short-term…
Phase mixing of chaotic orbits exponentially distributes these orbits through their accessible phase space. This phenomenon, commonly called ``chaotic mixing'', stands in marked contrast to phase mixing of regular orbits which proceeds as a…
Geodesic dynamics is regular in the fields of isolated stationary black holes. However, due to the presence of unstable periodic orbits, it easily becomes chaotic under various perturbations. Here we examine what amount of chaoticity is…
Traditionally, Probability theory was dealing with limit theorems where 'limit" means that time tends to infinity. Questions about finite time dynamics (evolution) were always considered as, although important for practical applications,…
Self-consistent chaotic transport is studied in a Hamiltonian mean-field model. The model provides a simplified description of transport in marginally stable systems including vorticity mixing in strong shear flows and electron dynamics in…
Black holes binaries support unstable orbits at very close separations. In the simplest case of geodesics around a Schwarzschild black hole the orbits, though unstable, are regular. Under perturbation the unstable orbits can become the…
We have constructed realistic, self-consistent models of triaxial elliptical galaxies embedded in triaxial dark matter haloes. We examined three different models for the shape of the dark matter halo: (i) the same axis ratios as the…
We present cuspy, non-axisymmetric, scale-free mass models of discs, whose gravitational potentials are of St\"ackel form in parabolic coordinates. A black hole may be added at the centre, without in any way affecting the St\"ackel form;…
Everything you ever wanted to know about what has come to be known as ``chaotic mixing:'' This paper describes the evolution of localised ensembles of initial conditions in 2- and 3-D time-independent potentials which admit both regular and…