Augmented stellar density 2026-10-06
An augmented density treats radius and relative potential as independent variables and reduces to the physical density on . Its extension away from that curve contains additional orbital-anisotropy information. Different extensions can give the same physical density; physical realizability additionally requires a nonnegative galactic distribution function.
The Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity gives
For , nonnegative mass density away from the origin is equivalent to . Strict positivity requires . This condition does not by itself guarantee a nonnegative galactic distribution function.
In a spherical Newtonian gravitational potential, use binding energy and specific angular momentum . The displayed stationary galactic distribution function has locally Gaussian radial and transverse velocities: , . Its mass density is . The velocity-anisotropy parameter is , so the core is nearly isotropic and the halo nearly radial. These exact Gaussian integrals use the untruncated distribution over all velocities; imposing an escape-energy cutoff changes them.
In a spherical galactic distribution function with , write and . The velocity Jacobian cancels the apparent singularity at . Integration of Gaussian energy components then reduces to one full-line and one half-line Gaussian integral. The angular average makes each tangential velocity dispersion half the radial one, so the velocity-anisotropy parameter is .
A steady galactic distribution function depending only on relative energy is isotropic and has zero mean velocity. If its one-dimensional velocity dispersion is constant, the Spherical Jeans equation reduces to , yielding the displayed density. This is a tracer relation in a specified gravitational potential, not a requirement that the tracer generate that potential. With no escape-energy cutoff its local velocity distribution is Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution.
Without an escape-energy cutoff, a galactic distribution function proportional to gives and a constant one-dimensional velocity dispersion. Since , differentiation gives the displayed hydrostatic relation. An ideal gas at constant temperature has pressure , so its hydrostatic equilibrium equation is identical at the displayed dispersion-temperature identification. Coupling either relation to the same Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity, with matched central density and boundary data, therefore gives the same density structure. Truncating the stellar velocities at escape changes this equivalence.
The singular axisymmetric logarithmic gravitational potential admits this stationary galactic distribution function with
The zero of specific orbital energy is the printed logarithmic convention. Products of Gaussian integrals normalize its two spatial density terms. For the two terms are separately nonnegative; mildly prolate models require a bound on their sum.
For a nonrotating axisymmetric galactic distribution function even in , reverse every retrograde azimuthal velocity. The resulting distribution is : it preserves density and even velocity moments but makes the streaming velocity . Dependence on conserved preserves stationarity. A centered Gaussian distribution of width becomes a half-normal distribution, with mean .
For the logarithmic-potential two-integral distribution, makes . Accessible phase space satisfies , attained by equatorial circular motion. Hence the galactic distribution function is nonnegative precisely when , giving the displayed upper bound. A larger prolate flattening parameter produces negative phase-space density even though the spatial mass density remains positive.
The density and self-consistent potential of a spherical galaxy need not determine its galactic distribution function. Different angular-momentum dependence can reproduce the same density with different velocity-anisotropy parameters. An isotropic Plummer model and its positive anisotropic Plummer distribution with unit anisotropy radius provide an explicit example. A chosen full augmented density is additional information.
The pressure tensor has Cartesian components . With zero mean velocity and an isotropic galactic distribution function, off-diagonal components vanish by reflection symmetry and diagonal components are equal by rotational symmetry. Therefore
Here is a tracer number-weighted random-motion stress, rather than thermodynamic pressure per volume. Its tensor divergence is . The time-independent, nonstreaming Jeans equation consequently reduces to
The gravitational acceleration convention is : this differs by a sign from the usual Newtonian gravitational potential .
Let measure distance along the line of sight. Spherical density projection gives
Because isotropy makes the local second stellar velocity moment along every line of sight equal to , and because there is no streaming motion, the projected moment is
This is the forward relation for isotropic stellar pressure deprojection.
Both inversions follow from one Abel transform calculation. Write and , so . Compose the transforms, using Tonelli's theorem for nonnegative densities, or absolute convergence for signed profiles:
Assume sufficient decay to make these integrals finite and sufficient regularity for the last derivative. Then . Setting gives the spherical Abel deprojection
Replacing by and by proves
These are the requested expressions, with . The composed-transform argument avoids an invalid separate differentiation of a divergent lower-end kernel.
The separated disk modes. Away from the plane of a razor-thin disk, there is no volume source, so the Newtonian gravitational potential obeys the Laplace equation in cylindrical coordinates. Separation of variables gives
Here is a radial wavenumber, with units of inverse length. Regularity on the axis selects the Bessel function of the first kind rather than the singular second solution. Decay away from the disk, continuity across it and reflection symmetry select . These conditions apply to each nonzero-wavenumber mode; a uniform sheet is a separate zero-mode problem.
Integrate the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity across the disk to obtain the jump condition
For the unit-amplitude separated mode, the jump is . Thus
An individual basis density is signed; positive physical surface densities are built by superposition.
An arbitrary axisymmetric surface density. Define its order-zero Hankel transform by
Matching the coefficients of the mode densities gives the Hankel representation of thin-disk gravity,
The boundary conditions exclude added external fields. For sufficiently decaying surface density, this is the isolated-disk potential; for infinite scale-free disks, only potential differences or regularized forces need be finite.
The Mestel disk. Put . The Bessel function integral , understood with a decaying regulator, gives . Differentiate the potential before removing the regulator and use :
The last integral is , since . Therefore the circular speed and enclosed mass are
Consequently . This equality follows from the specific Mestel disk calculation; the spherical shell theorem cannot be applied to general disks. Its total mass and absolute potential referenced to infinity diverge. A convenient finite midplane reference is .
The rotating distribution function. Use specific energy and . For the printed positive exponential, take and ; has units of squared velocity. If instead means ordinary total energy and , the velocity integral diverges, so that literal convention cannot define the requested galactic distribution function. Equivalently one can retain ordinary energy and choose the printed negative.
With the binding-energy convention, write the amplitude as to distinguish it from the function:
Integration over both radial velocities and positive azimuthal velocities gives
The half-line integral follows by setting in the defining Gamma function integral and requires . Matching its radial power and normalization to the Mestel disk yields the rotating Mestel disk distribution function parameters
Since , the required integrability condition is automatic. The amplitude uses the stated potential reference; changing the additive potential constant changes without changing the physical distribution.
First velocity moment. Assume a stationary, spherical, nonstreaming collisionless stellar system with constant mass-to-light ratio . Use a luminosity-weighted galactic distribution function, with luminosity density . Multiplying the Collisionless Boltzmann equation by and integrating over velocities, with its velocity-space boundary terms vanishing, gives
Spherical symmetry makes the stress tensor
Here is one tangential component, as in the paper; the total tangential variance is . Its radial divergence is , since the divergence of the radial unit vector is . With the velocity-anisotropy parameter , and enclosed mass , this gives the Spherical Jeans equation
This uses a constant ratio of total gravitating mass to luminosity, rather than an arbitrary independent dark halo.
Projection and elimination of anisotropy. Write for projected radius and for spherical radius. The Abel transform of the luminosity density gives
whose inverse is the displayed density inversion in the paper. At a point on this line of sight, . The line-of-sight second stellar velocity moment is . Therefore the measured quantity satisfies
The Spherical Jeans equation gives . Substitution yields
The inner printed in the PDF's definition of must therefore be : the literal expression has an extra gravitational factor and lacks the density. Both this derivation and dimensional consistency require the correction. Define the projected spherical Jeans residual by
To express it entirely in terms of the radial stress, put
Differentiating the nonsingular representation gives . Hence
If vanishes at zero and infinity, then . These are the absence-of-boundary-stress conditions needed for the global result.
The virial relation, term by term. Interchange the order in the residual integral and use
It follows that
The first term is : spherical averaging assigns one third of the integrated velocity-square to any fixed viewing direction, giving . The gravitational potential energy is
Thus the integrated residual is exactly , and its vanishing is the virial theorem. Solving for gives the global projected virial estimate of a mass-to-light ratio,
It is independent of the radial anisotropy profile when the full aperture and the stated boundary conditions are used. A finite aperture retains a boundary term.
Both models obtain their density by integrating a galactic distribution function over velocity. The planar model integrates one vertical velocity, whereas the spherical model integrates all three components. In each case the resulting density must also generate its own gravitational potential through the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity. The two printed numerical subparts are treated separately below.
Take to be the test body's instantaneous speed relative to the nonstreaming background, rather than an ensemble root mean square speed. Use a local isotropic galactic distribution function normalized as a number distribution, and assume independent encounters and a large, approximately constant Coulomb logarithm in stellar dynamics.
For a background particle with relative incoming velocity , a gravitational scattering angle obeys
In the centre-of-momentum frame, the test body's share of the relative velocity is . The azimuthal average cancels transverse changes, leaving a change parallel to the incoming relative velocity,
The number of encounters per unit time in and impact interval is . Integrating the longitudinal change from to gives
At leading logarithmic order replace the logarithm by , evaluated at a representative speed. For isotropic , the velocity-shell identity for dynamical friction is
One proof takes the divergence with respect to : the inverse-square vector field has divergence , whose velocity integral is , and rotational symmetry plus the divergence theorem determines the radial field. Exterior velocity shells give zero field. Consequently the systematic Chandrasekhar dynamical friction is antiparallel to motion, with
In the massive-test-body approximation , this becomes
The finite-test-mass dynamical friction coefficient shows the needed qualification: alone does not make . The quoted expression also neglects diffusion and the velocity dependence of the logarithmic cutoff. For the lowered Maxwellian velocity distribution, set for ; continuing the printed subtraction beyond escape would give a negative distribution. If , the integral stops at .
Assume a stationary, spherical, nonrotating collisionless stellar system, a constant mass-to-light ratio , and vanishing boundary stresses at infinity. Let be the luminosity density, so , and set . Distinguish spatial radius from projected radius . The enclosed luminosity and radial force are
Here is the velocity dispersion of either one of the two tangential components; thus . If a combined tangential variance is used instead, its contribution must be divided by two in this definition.
To derive the Jeans equation, start with the steady Collisionless Boltzmann equation . Multiply by and integrate over all velocities. Integration by parts in velocity, with decaying fast enough to eliminate boundary terms, gives
The same equation holds with luminosity weighting because the tracer's luminosity is conserved along its orbit. Spherical symmetry makes the local stellar velocity moment tensor diagonal, with entries , , . Its radial divergence is : the second term accounts for the changing directions of the radial and tangential unit vectors. Therefore
This is the Spherical Jeans equation; it follows from a stellar velocity moment rather than requiring a particular form of the galactic distribution function.
Integrating the luminosity density along a line of sight gives its surface brightness:
The second identity is Spherical Abel deprojection. For the second stellar velocity moment, the angle between the radial direction and the line of sight has . The line-of-sight velocity dispersion is therefore , and
From the Spherical Jeans equation, . Substitution produces
The primary PDF has a genuine symbol error in its projected gravity term: it prints a second multiplying inside the integral, where is required. The corrected projected spherical Jeans residual is
To justify the derivative at the singular-looking lower limit, write . Differentiation then gives . In particular, . If tends to zero both at zero and infinity, as for a finite isolated equilibrium with sufficiently decaying stresses,
If a boundary stress survives, its contribution must be retained; the zero-integral statement is not a finite-aperture identity.
Now identify each integral with a term in the virial theorem. Let be the total kinetic energy, including all three random components, and the gravitational potential energy. Averaging over spatial directions in a spherical system gives one third of the total stellar velocity moment along any chosen line of sight, even if the velocities are locally anisotropic. Thus
Building the spherical mass shell by shell gives
Finally, Fubini theorem and give the gravitational contribution to the residual integral explicitly:
Consequently
The global projected virial estimate of a mass-to-light ratio is independent of the velocity-anisotropy parameter under these assumptions. It does not remove the mass--anisotropy--density degeneracy for arbitrary radial mass profiles. In particular, if an independent dark matter halo makes mass fail to follow light, a single constant is no longer the physical enclosed mass-to-light ratio at every radius.
In an axisymmetric cylindrical coordinate system, the steady Collisionless Boltzmann equation is
Let and . Multiply by and integrate over velocities. The spatial terms give . Integration by parts in supplies , and the derivative supplies . The force term vanishes because does not depend on . This assumes sufficient decay of the galactic distribution function to discard all velocity boundary terms. The radial Jeans equation is consequently
Reflection symmetry about makes even and odd. At the midplane the latter vanishes, and . Multiplying by proves
All quadratic velocities here are population moments, not individual stellar velocities. In particular, symmetry does not make the midplane tilt contribution to asymmetric drift disappear: an odd mixed moment can have a nonzero derivative at zero.
For application to the Milky Way, assume negligible mean radial and vertical flows, and define the circular speed by . Write and . Rearranging gives the exact stress-support relation
Thus the stellar asymmetric drift is the right-hand side divided by . For , this denominator is approximately . If and locally, the bracket becomes , making the density and dispersion-gradient contributions explicit.
A radially declining random-motion stress supplies some of the force needed to support a galactic disk, so its stars need less ordered azimuthal motion than a population on circular orbits. Hotter, often older, stellar populations therefore generally rotate more slowly than cold populations in the same gravitational potential; this is the observed stellar asymmetric drift. It is a stress-support effect, not a frictional slowing of each orbit. For a velocity ellipsoid aligned approximately with spherical coordinates, , and the midplane tilt term contributes rather than zero.
Local measurements of mean rotation and all components of the velocity dispersion, combined with tracer-density and dispersion gradients, can therefore constrain and the radial Newtonian gravitational field. A hotter sample's mean rotation must not be identified directly with the circular speed. The tracer number density need not be the gravitating mass density. Nonaxisymmetric streaming, a nonstationary disk, poorly measured radial gradients, or a neglected tilt term can bias this inference; these are assumptions of the derivation rather than extra free corrections to the circular force.
First consider a genuinely one-dimensional, time-independent collisionless stellar system with Hamiltonian . Choose . For bound vertical oscillations, a phase-mixed population has equal occupations of the upward and downward branches of each orbit. By Jeans theorem, its stationary distribution is a function of the conserved vertical energy, . Equivalently, the one-dimensional Collisionless Boltzmann equation makes constant along the energy curves. Branch-dependent incoming and outgoing populations or time-dependent waves would not satisfy this assumption.
Integrate both signs of and change variable to :
The density is thus an Abel transform of the vertical-energy distribution. To invert it without simply quoting an inversion rule, apply a second integral and exchange its order:
The inner integral is , as follows by setting . Writing before differentiating avoids an artificial infinite endpoint term. Under sufficient differentiability and decay,
The vertical-energy Abel inversion of a stellar distribution is therefore
This proves the normalization, including the factor from the two velocity signs. The additive origin of merely changes the origin of energy.
For this expression to define a physical phase-space distribution function, must be expressible as a single-valued function of , the integrals and differentiated integral must converge, and the resulting must be nonnegative. Reflection symmetry and a potential increasing with provide the usual single-valued relation on either side of the disk. A sufficiently smooth decreasing is a sufficient condition for nonnegativity; it is not asserted to be necessary for every positive energy distribution. If there is a finite escape energy, replace the infinite limits by that energy and impose the appropriate cutoff and boundary conditions. The displayed infinite-limit formula presumes either a confining potential or a distribution extended by zero above its allowed energy, with no omitted boundary population.
A three-dimensional galactic disk does not automatically meet these hypotheses. Exact separation makes an integral of motion. If the full galactic distribution function factorizes into an in-plane factor and a vertical factor , integrating the in-plane velocities gives the required one-dimensional distribution after its normalization is absorbed into . More generally the vertical marginal must depend only on in the sample being analysed. Near the solar radius, approximate separation can be useful when the sampled heights and radial excursions are small relative to the scales over which the vertical force changes with . If only a slowly varying vertical action is conserved, replacing it by one fixed requires an additional controlled local approximation.
The population must be sufficiently stationary and phase mixed, with negligible mean vertical flow, and the data must measure a well-defined tracer population with a known selection function. Radial coupling and the tilted velocity ellipsoid must be negligible or modelled. In the full vertical Jeans equation, that coupling is ; it cannot generally be discarded merely because a mixed moment vanishes at the midplane. The tracer number density is not the mass density producing the potential.
To infer the local mass, measure the tracer density as a function of height and its vertical velocity distribution near the midplane. With , the latter directly samples . Insert that measured distribution into the forward integral for , and match it to the observed to infer . Equivalently, for trial potentials compute away from the plane, apply the inversion, and require agreement with the measured velocities. Density data alone do not determine both an unknown potential and an unknown energy distribution.
Once the vertical force is known, use the full axisymmetric Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity, rather than identifying every vertical derivative with density in isolation:
At the midplane, , so
In terms of the circular-orbit Oort constants, and , the radial term equals . It vanishes for a locally flat rotation curve, not for an arbitrary rotating disk. An integrated version gives the dynamical surface density from vertical stellar motions:
Here the actual vertical acceleration is . The sign of the radial correction follows directly from the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity.
For an illustrative isothermal tracer with constant vertical velocity dispersion , take
The velocity integral gives , hence . For a locally flat rotation curve this yields
This example shows explicitly how a measured tracer scale and velocity scale constrain the gravitating density; using the tracer's own density as the mass source would instead impose an unjustified self-gravitating model.
The inferred density includes luminous and faint stars, gas and dark matter. Comparing it with an independently estimated baryonic census tests for extra gravitating mass. An excess need not be a dark disk: a dark matter halo also contributes to the local force. Conversely, agreement with the baryonic density locally does not exclude a halo at other radii or heights. Vertical disequilibrium, radial mixing, errors in selection or tracer populations, and neglected velocity tilt can mimic a mass discrepancy, so the one-dimensional equilibrium assumptions must be tested when interpreting such an inference.
An integral of motion is a function of phase space that is constant along a trajectory. Put , so the stellar acceleration is . In a time-independent spherical Newtonian gravitational potential,
The second equality uses the radial direction of . Thus both the binding energy and the full specific angular momentum vector are integrals of motion.
The Collisionless Boltzmann equation is
For a stationary galactic distribution function, this says on every characteristic, so is constant on each stellar orbit. Locally choose a complete set of orbit labels , themselves integrals of motion; constancy along the characteristic means . Conversely, for any such differentiable , the chain rule gives . This proves Jeans theorem in its orbit-invariance form. It does not claim that just two particular integrals classify every orbit in an arbitrary potential. For the specified spherical model, is a rotationally invariant stationary choice.
For the velocity integration, write , , , and set . At fixed position the velocity-dependent factor is
Use and integrate over . The mass density is
Since ,
These integrals use the stated untruncated galactic distribution function over all velocities; an additional escape-energy cutoff would change the result.
In local orthogonal velocity components the same exponent is . Each component is a centred Gaussian distribution. The one-dimensional identity yields
In particular the velocity-anisotropy parameter is . This is Gaussian angular-momentum suppression in a stellar distribution.
The radial laws also require self-consistency through the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity:
For , outside a sufficiently small core, the model is almost isotropic and isothermal. Seek its scale-free envelope with . Its distribution-density relation gives , and the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity gives . Thus the intended intermediate singular isothermal sphere behaviour is
where a core scale is .
The stated law cannot be the actual central limit of a regular finite-density model. For finite and , regularity and the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity instead give
and . A broad intermediate region exists only if ; the radius alone does not ensure it.
For the outer radially anisotropic isothermal halo asymptotics, put , and . At the density relation and Poisson equation become
The slow outer balance is , so , giving . Its consistency check is , for which . Therefore
The reference radius changes only subleading logarithmic terms. The circular speed falls as , rather than remaining exactly flat.
Physically, the model has an almost isotropic central region and, if the scales separate, a flat-rotation isothermal envelope. Beyond , suppression of large specific angular momentum leaves predominantly radial orbits: radial velocity dispersion remains , while transverse dispersion falls as . The outer density acquires a logarithmic suppression and the galaxy rotation curve declines slowly. The enclosed mass still grows approximately as , so this untruncated model has infinite total mass.