Related papers: Dynamics of Cuspy Triaxial Galaxies with a Superma…
This paper summarises an investigation of chaos in a toy potential which mimics much of the behaviour observed for the more realistic triaxial generalisations of the Dehnen potentials, which have been used to model cuspy triaxial galaxies…
(Abridged) This paper studies chaotic orbit ensembles evolved in triaxial generalisations of the Dehnen potential which have been proposed to model ellipticals with a strong density cusp that manifest significant deviations from…
We use numerical simulations to study the evolution of triaxial elliptical galaxies with central black holes. In contrast to earlier numerical studies which used galaxy models with central density ``cores,'' our galaxies have steep central…
Here I present a review of the work done on the presence and effects of chaos in elliptical galaxies plus some recent results we obtained on this subject. The fact that important fractions of the orbits that arise in potentials adequate to…
Cuspy triaxial potentials admit a large number of chaotic orbits, which moreover exhibit extreme "stickiness" that makes the process of chaotic mixing surprisingly inefficient. Environmental effects, modeled as noise and/or periodic…
We use Schwarzschild's orbit superposition method to build self-consistent models of elliptical galaxies with scale-free potentials. Our exhaustive study of all physical shapes and central densities for galaxies with scale-free potentials…
We demonstrate that the nuclei of galaxies containing supermassive black holes can be triaxial in shape. Schwarzschild's method was first used to construct self-consistent orbital superpositions representing nuclei with axis ratios of…
This paper investigates chaos and chaotic phase mixing in triaxial Dehnen potentials which have been proposed to describe realistic ellipticals. Earlier work is extended by exploring the effects of (1) variable axis ratios, (2) `graininess'…
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 have constructed realistic, self-consistent models of triaxial elliptical galaxies embedded in triaxial dark matter halos. Self-consistent solutions by means of the standard orbital superposition technique introduced by Schwarzschild…
Luminous galaxies and their dark halos are likely to have triaxial shapes. The construction of distribution functions for triaxial systems is a hard problem, due to the existence of only one exact integral of motion, the energy $E$. Even…
(Abridged:) Schwarzschild's method was used to construct equilibrium solutions to the collisionless Boltzmann equation corresponding to a Plummer sphere, which were compared with analytical results to test the robustness of the numerical…
The consequences of nuclear black holes for the structure and dynamics of stellar spheroids are reviewed. Slow growth of a black hole in a pre-existing core produces a steep power-law density profile similar to the cusps seen in faint…
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…
We use both N-body simulations and integration in fixed potentials to explore the stability and the long-term secular evolution of self-consistent, equilibrium, non-rotating, triaxial spheroidal galactic models. More specifically, we…
We have constructed fully self-consistent models of triaxial galaxies with central density cusps. The triaxial generalizations of Dehnen's spherical models are presented, which have densities that vary as 1/r^gamma near the center and 1/r^4…
Recent results on chaos in triaxial galaxy models are reviewed. Central mass concentrations like those observed in early-type galaxies -- either stellar cusps, or massive black holes -- render most of the box orbits in a triaxial potential…
The radial-orbit instability is a collective phenomenon that has heretofore only been observed in spherical systems. We find that this instability occurs also in triaxial systems, as we checked by performing extensive N-body simulations…
We construct numerical models of mildly triaxial elliptical galaxies with central density cusps. Using a technique we call ``adiabatic squeezing'', we begin with a spherical gamma=1 Hernquist model and apply a drag to the velocities of the…
We present a detailed analysis of the behavior of the triaxial Schwarzschild orbit superposition method near the axisymmetric limit. Orbit superposition modeling is the primary method used to determine dynamical masses of supermassive black…