Related papers: Dynamical Modelling of Hot Stellar Systems
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…
This paper investigates the problem of prediction of stellar parameters, based on the star's electromagnetic spectrum. The knowledge of these parameters permits to infer on the evolutionary state of the star. From a statistical point of…
We present a new framework for estimating a galaxy's gravitational potential, Phi(x), from its stellar kinematics by adopting a fully non-parametric model for the galaxy's unknown action-space distribution function, f(J). Having an…
The only way to map the Galaxy's gravitational potential $\Phi({\bf x})$ and the distribution of matter that produces it is by modelling the dynamics of stars and gas. Observations of the kinematics of gas provide key information about…
Accurate and precise values of radii and masses of stars are needed to correctly estimate properties of extrasolar planets. We examine the effect of uncertainties in stellar model parameters on estimates of the masses, radii and average…
Spectral energy distributions for models of arbitrarily rotating stars are computed using two dimensional rotating stellar models, NLTE plane parallel model atmospheres, and a code to integrate the appropriately weighted intensities over…
Distribution functions (DFs) for dynamically warm thin stellar disks residing in arbitrary axisymmetric potentials are presented which approximately reproduce pre-described surface-density and velocity-dispersion profiles. The functional…
I present a discussion of fundamental stellar parameters and their observational determination in the context of interferometric measurements with current and future optical/infrared interferometric facilities. Stellar parameters and the…
One of the fundamental tasks of dynamical astronomy is to infer the distribution of mass in a stellar system from a snapshot of the positions and velocities of its stars. The usual approach to this task (e.g., Schwarzschild's method)…
The relations between observable stellar parameters are usually assumed to be deterministic. That is, given an infinitely precise measurement of independent variable, `$x$', and some model, the value of dependent variable, `$y$' can be…
Asteroseismology has the capability of delivering stellar properties which would otherwise be inaccessible, such as radii, masses and thus ages of stars. When coupling this information with classical determinations of stellar parameters,…
We combine results from interferometry, asteroseismology and spectroscopic analyses to determine accurate fundamental parameters (mass, radius and effective temperature) of 10 bright solar-type stars covering the H-R diagram from spectral…
Context: The modelling of stationary galactic stellar populations can be performed using distribution functions. Aims: This paper aims to write explicit integrals of motion and distribution functions. Methods: We propose an analytic…
Context. Kinematical data such as the mean velocities and velocity dispersions of stellar samples are useful tools to study galactic structure and evolution. However, observational data are often incomplete (e.g., lacking the radial…
The understanding and modeling of the structure and evolution of stars is based on statistical physics as well as on hydrodynamics. Today, a precise identification and proper description of the physical processes at work in stellar…
Model fitting is frequently used to determine the shape of galaxies and the point spread function, for examples, in weak lensing analyses or morphology studies aiming at probing the evolution of galaxies. However, the number of parameters…
We present a method for constructing dynamical models of stellar systems described by distribution functions and constrained by discrete-kinematic data. We implement various improvements compared to earlier applications of this approach,…
Accurate specification of a likelihood function is becoming increasingly difficult in many inference problems in astronomy. As sample sizes resulting from astronomical surveys continue to grow, deficiencies in the likelihood function lead…
We present an approach to the design of distribution functions that depend on the phase-space coordinates through the action integrals. The approach makes it easy to construct a dynamical model of a given stellar component. We illustrate…
We briefly review some constraints (Owing to the limited number of pages of present review, only a sub-sample of the topics discussed during the talk are briefly summarized. For the interested readers we are pleased to send them upon…