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Interpret the barred velocities as second moments of a steady nonstreaming collisionless stellar system, and write ${\sigma }_r^2=\overline{v_r^2}$. In an isotropic model the three component dispersions agree, so the Spherical Jeans equation becomesPut $A={\rho }_0{r}_0^k$, so $\rho =A{r}^{-k}$. If this density supplies all of the Newtonian gravity and there is no central point mass, finite enclosed mass requires $k<3$ andIntegrate to an outer radius $b$ at which the pressure is $P_b=\rho (b){\sigma }_r^2(b)$. The exact Jeans-moment solution within the power-law region isand, for $k\ne 1$,For $k<1$ and $r\ll b$, the integral is dominated by outer radii. ThereforeThe coefficient cannot be determined from the local density cusp alone. Extending the power law to infinity gives a divergent pressure integral when $k<1$, so an outer scale or boundary condition is essential. For the usual shallow cusp $0<k<1$, the central velocity dispersion tends to zero even though the density diverges.

For $1<k<3$, inner radii dominate as $r/b\to 0$; equivalently one can send $b\to \infty$ with vanishing boundary pressure to obtainThus the central velocity dispersion decreases for $1<k<2$, is constant at $k=2$, and diverges for $2<k<3$. At the omitted threshold $k=1$, ${\sigma }_r^2=(P_b/A)r+2\pi GAr\ln (b/r)$. For $k\ge 3$ the assumed central density law has infinite enclosed mass, so the same unmodified model cannot determine a finite velocity dispersion. These boundary and domain restrictions are the boundary dependence of an isotropic self-gravitating cusp; specifying density without them does not specify a physical finite galaxy.