Related papers: Should Elliptical Galaxies Be Idealised as Collisi…
We present $N$--body models for triaxial elliptical galaxies or halos of galaxies, which are fully self--gravitating, have near constant axis ratio as a function of radius and a $r^{-1}$ central density cusp. Preliminary investigation…
In this paper we provide sharp criteria for linear stability or instability of equilibria of collisionless plasmas in the presence of boundaries. Specifically, we consider the relativistic Vlasov-Maxwell system with specular reflection at…
The objective of the work summarised here has been to exploit and extend ideas from plasma physics and accelerator dynamics to formulate a unified description of collisionless relaxation that views violent relaxation, Landau damping, and…
An origin is sought for the ubiquity of cusps, both in computer simulations of halo formation in hierarchical clustering cosmogonies and in observations of galactic nuclei by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The encounters of merging…
The formation of elliptical galaxies as a result of the merging of spiral galaxies is discussed. We analyse a large set of numerical N-Body merger simulations which show that major mergers can in principle explain the observed isophotal…
Studies of the Fundamental Plane of early-type galaxies, from small to intermediate redshifts, are often carried out under the guiding principle that the Fundamental Plane reflects the existence of an underlying mass-luminosity relation for…
A review of the present observational and theoretical status of elliptical galaxies is presented with the aim to clarify whether the monolithic or the hierarchical, is a more viable scenario for the origin of these structures. We describe…
We numerically study the stability of collisionless equilibria in the context of general relativity. More precisely, we consider the spherically symmetric, asymptotically flat Einstein-Vlasov system in Schwarzschild and in maximal areal…
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 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 consider the conformal Einstein equations for massless collisionless gas cosmologies which admit an isotropic singularity. After developing the general theory, we restrict to spatially-homogeneous cosmologies. We show that the Cauchy…
We consider the conformal Einstein equations for massless collisionless gas cosmologies which admit an isotropic singularity. It is shown that the Cauchy problem for these equations is well-posed with data consisting of the limiting…
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;…
This paper discusses the possibility of constructing time-independent solutions to the collisionless Boltzmann equation which depend on quantities other than global isolating integrals such as energy and angular momentum. The key point is…
This paper summarizes Kormendy et al. (2009, ApJS, in press, arXiv:0810.1681). We confirm that spheroidal galaxies have fundamental plane correlations that are almost perpendicular to those for bulges and ellipticals. Spheroidals are not…
This paper is devoted to consideration of the theory of collisionless statistical systems with interparticle scalar interaction. The mathematical model of such systems is constructed and the exact solution of Vlasov equation for isotropic…
The problem posed by the possible existence/non-existence of spatially non-symmetric kinetic equilibria has remained unsolved in plasma theory. For collisionless magnetized plasmas this involves the construction of stationary solutions of…
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations reveal that the density of stars in most elliptical galaxies rises toward the center in a power-law cusp. Many of these galaxies also contain central dark objects,possibly supermassive black holes.…
We describe a technique for solving the combined collisionless Boltzmann and Poisson equations in a discretised, or lattice, phase space. The time and the positions and velocities of `particles' take on integer values, and the forces are…
The last decade of research on elliptical galaxies has produced a wealth of new information concerning both their detailed structure and their global scaling relations. We review the old and new results about isophote shapes and…