Related papers: Chaos and Elliptical Galaxies
We study the regular or chaotic nature of orbits in a 3D potential describing a triaxial galaxy surrounded by a spherical dark halo component. Our numerical calculations show, that the percentage of chaotic orbits decreases exponentially,…
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 survey the properties of all orbit families in the rotating frame of a family of realistic triaxial potentials with central supermassive black holes (SMBHs). In such galaxies, most regular box orbits (vital for maintaining triaxiality)…
Fractal basin boundaries provide an important means of characterizing chaotic systems. We apply these ideas to general relativity, where other properties such as Lyapunov exponents are difficult to define in an observer independent manner.…
We investigate the stability of trajectories in barred galaxies with mildly triaxial halos by means of Liapunov exponents. This method is perfectly suitable for time-dependent 3D potentials where surfaces of sections and other simple…
Orbital motion in triaxial nuclei with central point masses, representing supermassive black holes, is investigated. The stellar density is assumed to follow a power law, rho ~ 1/r^gamma, with gamma=1 or gamma=2. At low energies the motion…
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…
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 investigate the chaotic behavior of the S-star cluster in the Galactic center using precise $N$-body calculations, free from round-off or discretization errors. Our findings reveal that chaos among the Galactic center S-stars arises from…
A 3D-dynamical model is constructed for the study of motion in the central regions of a disk galaxy with a double nucleus. Using the results of the 2D-model, we find the regions of initial conditions in the (x,px,z,py)=EJ, (y=pz=0) phase…
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…
Self-consistent solutions for triaxial mass models are highly non-unique. In general, some of these solutions might be dynamically unstable, making them inappropriate as descriptions of steady-state galaxies. Here we demonstrate for 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…
Three types of orbits are theoretically possible in autonomous Hamiltonian systems with three degrees of freedom: fully chaotic (they only obey the energy integral), partially chaotic (they obey an additional isolating integral besides…
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 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…
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…
The orbital structure of triaxial models with weak central density cusps, $\rho\propto r^{-\gamma}, gamma < 1$, is investigated. The stability of the $x$- (long-) axis orbit -- and hence the existence of box orbits -- depends sensitively on…
We construct models of triaxial galactic nuclei containing central black holes using the method of orbital superposition, then verify their stability by advancing N-body realizations of the models forward in time. We assume a power-law form…
This paper proposes an alternative characterisation of the degree of stochasticity exhibited by orbits in a fixed galactic potential. This differs from earlier work involving Liapounov exponents by focusing on the statistical properties of…