Put , where the Gaussian density is strictly positive. Extend continuously at zero by . Both densities have integral one, so the relative entropy can be written as
The bracket is nonnegative and vanishes only at : its derivative for is , with a unique minimum at one. Hence
The inequality holds also for infinite entropy. Its negative integrand part is integrable, since and has integral one, so the extended-value integral is well defined. This is relative entropy in Kac's model; no differentiation is needed for nonnegativity.
Use the correct Gaussian entropy decomposition
The last coefficient is , as follows from ; the printed hint omits it. Under the allowed differentiability and integrability assumptions, the supplied collision invariants conserve mass and energy. Differentiating therefore gives
where the extra derivative term vanishes by mass conservation. Thus the Kac entropy production is
For one pair, call the double integral . The measure-preserving substitution interchanges and , with angles taken modulo . Averaging the original and substituted expressions gives
Since , the desired Kac entropy dissipation formula is
For positive values , because the logarithm is increasing. At two zeros use value zero; at one zero and one positive value use the nonnegative extended value . One may first use positive densities and then regularize by ; rotation invariance of preserves the formula and permits the usual limit at zeros under the stated assumptions.
Thus relative entropy is nonincreasing along the evolution. When the dissipation is finite, zero dissipation means pairwise rotation invariance and hence radiality, by the preceding kernel argument. Radial normalized densities other than can be stationary with positive relative entropy: vanishing dissipation is not a claim that the unique stationary density is Gaussian.
Choose boundary states with nonzero overlap with the lowest-energy state in the vacuum sector and in the one-kink topological sector . In a finite spatial box, a fixed scalar field configuration eigenstate may be used formally, with temporal endpoints equal to the chosen configuration. More generally, smear the endpoints with wavefunctionals . Their unitary time evolution kernels are
The inner scalar field path integral remains in the chosen topological sector, with . A zero-total-momentum projection can be included to select the rest state; alternatively, the translational prefactor does not change the large-time exponential. After a Wick rotation to physical Euclidean time , the energy eigenstate expansion gives . Thus the exact vacuum-subtracted soliton mass is
Equivalently it is at large time with a damping prescription. The ratio subtracts the vacuum energy; the Hamiltonian operator and action here are the fully regulated and renormalized ones, not merely their classical approximations.
With the dimensionless coordinates of this paper, the correctly normalized classical action is
For the static Sine-Gordon kink, and , so . Write . Expanding and integrating by parts gives
The first variation is , plus boundary terms. It vanishes because the kink satisfies the Euler-Lagrange field equation and the fluctuations have the prescribed temporal endpoints and admissible spatial boundary behavior. This is the principle of stationary action, not a symmetry assumption about .
The printed expansion omits despite the stated Lagrangian density. Its displayed form is the expansion of ; it is not the physical at arbitrary coupling. Alternatively, writing puts the quadratic term in canonical normalization, while leaving the classical term unchanged. This normalization repair does not change or the physical fluctuation frequencies.
The Sine-Gordon kink fluctuation operator has the useful factorization
It is nonnegative, and gives the normalized translational zero mode of a sine-Gordon kink:
A displacement changes by . Thus the zero mode in field theory is the position collective coordinate of the kink, reflecting translation invariance. It has no restoring force and no oscillator zero-point energy. Integrate that collective coordinate separately rather than inserting a zero factor into the Gaussian functional determinant.
Figure 1.
Sine-Gordon kink fluctuation potential and normalized translational zero mode
.
In the Gaussian fluctuation approximation, the formal oscillator contribution to the one-loop soliton mass correction, before adding any counterterm, is
Use a common regulator for the two sums, include all discrete modes, and treat the translation mode as above. The vacuum sum is essential: subtracting only classical vacuum energy would leave an extensive oscillator energy. A periodic fluctuation and its derivative are matched at the two ends of the large box; the one-kink background lies in the twisted topological sector, and its infinite-line profile is accurate up to exponentially small boundary corrections.
For a continuum scattering wavefunction, equality of its two asymptotic values gives the periodic-box phase-shift quantization
Away from the threshold, expand at a matched mode number:
Since consecutive free wave numbers are separated by , replacing the continuum-mode sum by an integral proves the displayed continuum contribution:
The ultraviolet cutoff is retained until the counterterm is added.
There is a finite threshold issue if this expression is identified with the complete oscillator correction. It can be settled directly using the factorization: a continuum eigenfunction is . Its transmission phase obeys
with the odd phase branch that tends to zero at large . For , the continuum roots have labels ; there is no periodic continuum root at , since the limiting eigenfunction has opposite signs at the two ends. The bound state at replaces the free oscillator with . Consequently, in mode-number regularization of soliton masses,
The PDF's continuum-only formula misses this finite under this standard phase and mode-counting convention. It has the correct logarithmic ultraviolet divergence, but the missing term is not suppressed by large . Changing the phase branch requires changing the mode labels and endpoint terms consistently; it cannot erase a physical mode from the formal spectrum sum.
At high momentum, , so both expressions have divergent part . The canonical field has a quartic interaction with coupling . Its vacuum tadpole diagram shifts the squared mass by , where
The Sine-Gordon vacuum tadpole counterterm has and adds potential energy density . Since , its vacuum-subtracted kink energy is
which cancels the logarithmic ultraviolet divergence. Finite parts require a specified renormalization condition. As a consistency check, with this tadpole subtraction and matched mode-number cutoff, integration by parts yields
The complete semiclassical soliton mass is then in that convention. This last finite result uses the bound-mode term and is additional to the requested ultraviolet cancellation.
The moment-generating function of a random variable is , at the real values of for which that expectation is finite. For a standard normal distribution variable , combining the exponentials in its probability density function yields
The last equality follows by scaling the Gaussian integral. The variables are independent random variables, so the expectation of their product factorizes. Therefore
This is the moment-generating function of a chi-squared distribution with degrees of freedom. For positive the defining integral diverges at and above .
For real parameters, work on so arbitrary real powers are unambiguous. Taking derivatives gives
The residual after substitution is
When , ranges over . Evaluating at the zeros of the cosine first forces the sine coefficient to vanish; then the cosine coefficient vanishes identically. If , the nonzero constant cannot satisfy the equation. Thus the necessary and sufficient conditions are
Under these conditions the normalized coefficient is . The Abel identity gives . Choose and apply reduction of order on an interval where :
The substitution evaluates the integral. After continuation across the cosine zeros,
This is a power substitution for an oscillatory second-order equation: in the variable , the equation reduces to the harmonic oscillator equation.
Use the Bromwich inversion formula in the real variable , with :
When the relevant Laplace transforms and spatial integral transforms are explicit, every sample of this integrand can be evaluated directly, without a time-stepping approximation to the partial differential equation. Split the initial condition integral at : the two pieces of are linear combinations of , so truncated spatial exponential transforms suffice. For real data the negative-frequency half is the complex conjugate of the positive-frequency half.
A practical numerical integration is to truncate to , apply an adaptive quadrature rule, and independently increase and refine the quadrature. Choose large enough to remain to the right of all singularities, but avoid an unnecessarily large . Evaluate hyperbolic function ratios in scaled form; for example,
This prevents overflow when is large. The boundary contributions at an interior point are damped by or , with . Near an endpoint more frequencies are needed; at the endpoint itself use the prescribed Dirichlet boundary condition. The initial condition resolvent has a generally only tail. Treat its oscillatory tail accurately, subtract a known transform with the same leading term, or evaluate that contribution separately with the heat kernel.
An equally useful check is the eigenfunction expansion. Define
The causal modal formula is
It follows either from the heat kernel formula or directly from integration by parts against a sine eigenfunction. Exponential-transform formulas evaluate the time integral explicitly when available. The initial condition contribution has a Gaussian function cutoff in for each positive time. Nonzero endpoint forcing produces a more slowly convergent sine series tail. A boundary lifting gives , where has zero Dirichlet boundary conditions and forcing ; expanding gives better convergence and imposes the endpoint values exactly. At very small times the method of images is often more efficient than retaining many modes.
Check convergence by increasing both the frequency cutoff and quadrature resolution, and compare with a separately truncated causal modal or image-kernel evaluation. Causality in finite-time Laplace contour inversion means a leftward contour deformation must respect both resolvent operator poles and growth of the transformed data. In particular, the transform of data extended by zero after can grow like in the left half-plane: for one cannot close that contour indiscriminately and discard its large arc. The modal forcing integral with upper limit avoids this causality error.
The expansion is singular near the moving lower limit, so expanding throughout the original integral would lose its constant term. Introduce the symmetric exponential integral
Under , the discarded piece becomes
This is a uniform Taylor expansion because . To derive the logarithmic expansion of a symmetric exponential integral without needing another special function, first exploit the same substitution to write
The estimate follows from . Here is Euler's constant and the small-argument expansion of the exponential integral fixes the constant as well as the logarithm.
Differentiate under the integral and integrate the derivative of over ; the exponentially small endpoint terms vanish. This gives the ordinary differential equation
For the Frobenius method at its regular singular point, write . Substitution gives and . The preceding leading calculation sets , , hence
Subtracting the moving-cutoff correction to a symmetric exponential integral yields the requested answer, including the logarithmically enhanced first-order term:
Thus the switchback term must be retained when asking for all contributions through order .
Define the nested integral
The order- equation in the inner expansion is . The preceding result decomposes its forcing into . The particular solutions combine to
For example, follows directly by differentiating the nested integral, so the equation can also be verified without relying on the supplied particular-solution formulas. At zero ; add to impose the left boundary condition. As this gives
The outer expansion in the overlap, derived in the previous section, requires the remaining constant to be . Thus . The logarithmic matching constant is an error-function logarithmic switchback.
The complete answer through order in the inner expansion is
Here , and . This expression is zero at , and its large- expansion agrees with . Together with , it covers both requested regions. The overlap uses , with the usual termwise ordering restrictions when matching higher terms.
If a single continuous approximation is desired, an additive composite expansion is
The apparent logarithmic divergence at cancels: its residual is . The composite therefore extends continuously to the left endpoint and satisfies the right boundary condition to the requested order.
For smooth rapidly decaying initial data, apply the Fourier transform in and differentiate under the integral. The Fourier transform of a derivative turns the wave equation into
Solving this constant-coefficient ordinary differential equation gives
At the quotient means its continuous limit , so .
Since , the Translation property of the Fourier transform inverts the first term as . Also has Fourier transform , including its limiting value at zero. The convolution theorem therefore inverts the second term as
This proves the D'Alembert formula
The formula itself extends beyond the rapidly decaying class: and suffice for a classical solution, verified by differentiation and the two initial conditions. The decay assumption above justifies the ordinary transform derivation without distributional qualifications.
Take a smooth variation with on the boundary. Assume enough differentiability for the following operations, for example a smooth bounded open set, , and a twice continuously differentiable integrand. Differentiation under the integral gives
By integration by parts, the boundary term vanishes and the first variation is
Stationarity for every such variation, including every compactly supported smooth one, and the fundamental lemma of the calculus of variations give the Euler-Lagrange equation
For the quadratic integrand, , , and . Thus
with the prescribed Dirichlet boundary condition. For real , a stationary function is also the unique minimizer, if it exists: for any nonzero admissible , the linear term vanishes and . This last positivity uses the zero boundary values; it also holds at .
Work on as a probability space, with Lebesgue measure of total mass one. Let be the filtration generated by the level- half-open dyadic cells together with the separate null cell . Define the dyadic slope martingale by
The endpoint may be assigned any value, since it is a null set for Lebesgue measure. The two child slopes average to their parent slope, by telescoping the two increments. Therefore almost everywhere, so this is a martingale. The Lipschitz condition gives everywhere except possibly at the freely chosen endpoint, where we take zero.
Apply the Lp martingale convergence theorem with . Its limit has almost everywhere and in L1 norm as well, by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Choose a measurable representative of and set it to zero on any exceptional null set; it is then a bounded measurable function on the entire interval.
Set . Telescoping at the grid points shows that is the linear interpolation of on the dyadic grid. The Lipschitz condition gives . Also
The two uniform limits coincide, giving the absolutely continuous function representation
The chosen bound holds for every after the null-set modification; the integral identity holds for every simultaneously.
Use the same dyadic slope martingale and dyadic filtration as in (c). Each is integrable, since it takes finitely many finite values. On each dyadic cell, the absolute slope is times the absolute endpoint increment. Consequently the hypothesis in the PDF is exactly
Thus is uniformly integrable. It is also bounded in L1 norm: choose a finite at which the supremum of the tails is finite, and use . The uniformly integrable martingale convergence theorem supplies with in L1 norm.
The functions are again the dyadic linear interpolations of . Since is continuous on a compact interval, it is uniformly continuous, and , where is its modulus of continuity. On the other hand, the integral of is uniformly bounded in absolute value by . Hence the dyadic slope-tail criterion for absolute continuity gives
No boundedness of is asserted here; the tail condition permits integrable densities that are unbounded.
Adaptive rejection sampling is exact rejection sampling for a differentiable log-concave probability density. Given interior evaluation points , construct the upper envelope
where is the unnormalized target probability density function. The concave function lies below all its tangent lines, so . Interpolation between adjacent evaluation points gives a lower envelope there, allowing a squeeze test. The normalized upper envelope is a piecewise exponential proposal distribution.
Draw and an independent from the uniform distribution, and accept when . A squeeze test can establish acceptance without evaluating . Otherwise evaluate and, whenever it is evaluated, add to the envelope's points. Repeat until acceptance. On each linear piece , its integral is on , with value when . These integrals select a piece; inverse transform sampling samples within it.
Here, with and , the log-posterior on has
Choose evaluation points strictly inside , avoiding any endpoint singularities of the logarithm. Every finite set of tangent lines gives a finite upper-envelope integral on this bounded interval; slope conditions needed for unbounded supports are unnecessary. When the posterior distribution is simply the uniform distribution and may be sampled directly.
For any fixed envelope, proposal times acceptance is proportional to . Conditional on all past evaluations and rejections, the next accepted value therefore has the same normalized posterior density. To see that adaptation does not spoil this, at every attempted draw its accepted mass is a scalar times that fixed posterior density; summing over possible rejection histories preserves it. The acceptance probability stays bounded below by its positive initial-envelope value because insertion only lowers the upper envelope. Thus acceptance occurs almost surely. With fresh independent randomness, successive accepted values are exact independent samples from the posterior distribution, even when the envelope is retained and improved between them.
Work first in units . Black-hole thermodynamics starts with the laws of black-hole mechanics. For a connected stationary regular Killing horizon, the Zeroth law of black-hole mechanics makes its surface gravity constant when the Einstein field equations and dominant energy condition hold. This parallels uniform equilibrium temperature. For neighboring stationary asymptotically flat four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell black holes, the First law of black-hole mechanics is
where is the horizon angular velocity and its electric potential relative to infinity. The last terms are rotational and electromagnetic work, analogous to the work terms in . The second law of black-hole mechanics, expressed by Hawking's area theorem, makes the total future horizon area nondecreasing for classical matter obeying the null energy condition and global assumptions such as strong asymptotic predictability. The third law of black-hole mechanics is an unattainability statement: subject to the usual regularity assumptions, the weak energy condition, and a bounded stress-energy tensor, no finite physical process reduces the surface gravity of a regular horizon to zero. It does not assert that extremal black holes have zero area or zero entropy.
Classical geometry alone fixes an analogy, not a nonzero physical temperature. Quantum field theory supplies Hawking temperature . Comparing the area term of the first law with gives for nonextremal holes, and hence the standard Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. Restoring physical constants,
Here restored is the physical acceleration surface gravity and is the squared Planck length. The first-law comparison determines the area coefficient, leaving an additive entropy constant unspecified; the displayed formula is the usual convention. Its area scaling, rather than ordinary volume scaling, signals that the available thermodynamic degrees of freedom of a gravitating system are constrained by the horizon geometry.
Particle production explains the quantum input. For a real scalar field obeying the massless covariant wave equation, the Klein-Gordon inner product on solutions is
The wave equation makes its current divergence-free, so the product is independent of a Cauchy hypersurface when the boundary flux vanishes. Use suitably normalized wave packets or the appropriate continuum distributions. Asymptotic past and future Minkowski spacetimes give preferred positive-frequency solution mode bases and , normalized by , and . Between those regions, a nonstationary geometry generally has no preferred positive-frequency splitting.
The mode bases are related by a Bogoliubov transformation,
The last identities follow from conservation of the Klein-Gordon inner product and are the canonical identities for a bosonic Bogoliubov transformation. Expanding the field in either complete basis and extracting its positive-frequency coefficient gives
Thus the state annihilated by every has
This particle number from Bogoliubov coefficients is nonzero when time evolution mixes positive and negative frequencies. It describes one state as vacuum in the early particle basis and populated in the late basis; it does not require an arbitrary choice of a vacuum at each intermediate time. For a finite implementable transformation the state remains a squeezed pure quantum state. In infinitely many modes, a common unitary bosonic Fock space implementation requires additional conditions, such as the beta map being a Hilbert-Schmidt operator; finite wave packet observables need not share every global divergence of an ideal continuum calculation.
For gravitational collapse, the future is not globally Minkowski: it contains a black hole. The relevant late out-basis includes modes reaching future null infinity together with modes entering the future event horizon. Modes on infinity alone are not a complete Cauchy basis. Nevertheless the same mode-mixing calculation determines the outgoing particle flux. Near a nonextremal horizon, the logarithm in the tortoise coordinate converts regular early null coordinates into the Hawking exponential ray map
where is the early affine null coordinate and is late retarded time at infinity. Backward propagation of a late outgoing mode gives a factor for . Its positive- and negative-frequency Fourier integrals differ by analytic continuation around the logarithmic branch. With a convergence regulator they reduce to
Taking gives the thermal ratio of Hawking Bogoliubov coefficients, . Combining this with the canonical normalization yields the bosonic occupation . Late-time wave packets turn formal continuum coefficients into a finite number flux.
A Schwarzschild black hole has , so this spectrum has . The exterior curvature potential partly reflects the outgoing modes. Its transmission probabilities are the greybody factors, giving, for one massless scalar species in the stationary late-time approximation,
Thus the horizon temperature is universal, while the spectrum received at infinity is not a perfect featureless blackbody radiation spectrum. The derivation assumes the near-horizon quantum state inherited from a regular collapse vacuum and ignores rapid backreaction over the timescale of the packets. Exponentially blueshifted precursor frequencies indicate the usual short-distance assumption in the semiclassical calculation, not an independently demonstrated quantum-gravity description of the endpoint.
The outgoing positive energy flux drives black-hole evaporation. At leading order for a large isolated Schwarzschild black hole, area scales as and temperature as , giving and a lifetime of order , with the coefficient depending on species and transmission factors. Its negative heat capacity of a Schwarzschild black hole, , means that it heats up as it loses mass and cannot be in stable canonical equilibrium with an unlimited thermal reservoir. The approximation fails when quantum-gravitational scales are reached and does not fix whether the endpoint is complete evaporation, a remnant, or something else.
Area loss does not contradict the classical area theorem, because the quantum stress-energy tensor need not obey the classical null energy condition; negative horizon energy accompanies the positive outgoing flux. The appropriate thermodynamic statement is the generalized second law, involving . Finally, Hawking radiation raises the black hole information paradox: if a pure quantum state completely evaporates into an exactly thermal mixed quantum state and its partners disappear, the result conflicts with ordinary unitary time evolution. Early outgoing radiation can be mixed simply because of its entanglement with interior modes while the complete state remains a pure quantum state; that fact alone is not information loss. Resolving the fate of all correlations through the evaporation endpoint requires more than the leading semiclassical flux calculation.
Put and let now mean number per area. During time , the two strips of impact parameters between and , on opposite sides of the trajectory, have combined area . Thus
The same straight-line impulse approximation gives a kick . Summing its squared size over these encounters gives
assuming . The relevant change is now the small random speed , not the full circular speed . Setting yields
The razor-thin disk relaxation integral is dominated by nearby encounters, rather than equally by logarithmic intervals. Because kicks cease to be weak near the cutoff, its numerical coefficient is an estimate.
Here the weak-deflection cutoff must use the relative speed: , which is larger than the spherical cutoff. Thus . Using and from the virial theorem gives
For example gives the order-one coefficient in this last substitution; the paper's approximate equality suppresses such structural factors. The cancellation of is the central result.
An unsoftened point-particle system confined to an infinitesimally thin plane is therefore not collisionless over orbital times for in this encounter model. At fixed total mass, increasing decreases and the cutoff together; the enhanced importance of close planar encounters cancels the usual benefit of increasing particle number. This is a singular zero-thickness limit. A fixed nonzero gravitational softening length or physical thickness restores a different dependence, so the conclusion is not a prohibition on collisionless numerical models of disks.
Assume a time-independent spherical relative potential , with acceleration . The relative energy and specific angular momentum are
Along an orbit, and , since a spherical gradient is radial. Thus both and are integrals of motion. Choose the escape level and take the bound galactic distribution function to vanish for .
For an isotropic , integrate over a spherical coordinate system in velocity space:
Differentiating gives . Convolve once more with the reciprocal-square-root kernel. Reversing the order of integration, under the usual integrability assumptions, uses
Therefore . Differentiating proves Eddington inversion:
Here is outside the square root, as in the original PDF; the TeX transcription wrongly places it inside. The assumptions include a locally integrable bound distribution and sufficient density regularity, with no extra unbound or boundary population. An inverted expression must additionally be nonnegative to be physical. Since the velocity measure and are invariant under all velocity rotations, whenever these moments exist; mixed moments vanish.
For the half-anisotropic distribution function, write the polar velocity angle from the radial direction as . Then , and
The apparent singularity is integrable because it cancels the factor in the velocity measure. Integrating and gives
The density relation requires at the escape boundary and for a physical distribution. Consider a monotonically decreasing . The largest allowed radius at fixed binding energy is the radial-orbit limit with ; a nonzero- orbit normally has a smaller apocenter because of its centrifugal term. Changing from to gives
The numerator in the original PDF instead uses . That is a genuine printed error: the chain rule for requires . It is not legitimate to prove the printed expression as written. A concrete counterexample is the unit-parameter Hernquist model at : , and . The printed quotient is , whereas the correct is . The former would give a negative distribution.
The angular weight after cancellation is uniform in , so the averages of and are both . The azimuthal angle splits the tangential term equally. Hence and each individual tangential moment is half the radial one. The velocity-anisotropy parameter is consequently
This is a radially biased constant-anisotropy distribution function, not an isotropic one or purely radial motion. It does not by itself prove dynamical stability; it preferentially weights small angular momentum while remaining integrable.
For the Hernquist model, use the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity with the relative-potential sign, . Since ,
Its enclosed mass is , which tends to . Expressing the augmented density in the relative potential gives . The preceding derivative therefore gives
with zero bound-model population outside the allowed energy domain. It is nonnegative and reproduces the density by direct integration. The Hernquist model has a central density cusp, so the formulas for the local distribution are interpreted at . As a further check, the radial second moment obtained from the same integral is and each tangential second moment is , consistent with .
Use the same specified homogeneous Newtonian background and Jeans swindle, but describe stars by a mass-normalized galactic distribution function. The Collisionless Boltzmann equation is . Let and similarly perturb the gravitational potential. To first order,
Eliminating and the nonzero gravitational potential amplitude gives the collisionless Jeans dispersion relation
For growing modes there is no real-velocity pole. Real and damped frequencies require a causal contour prescription or analytic continuation; one must not simply integrate through a pole without specifying it.
Take in the Cauchy velocity distribution. Its normalization is . Orient along the axis and integrate over the perpendicular velocities:
At the marginal mode , , with its finite limiting value at zero. The provided Gamma function integral at power two gives
Consequently
To check that this really separates growing modes, put in the upper half-plane. Residue integration, or integration by parts followed by the Cauchy resolvent, gives . The upper-half-plane solution has , which grows exactly for . At the threshold it approaches the marginal mode continuously. Although plays the threshold role of a velocity scale, this distribution's second moment diverges: the radial integrand for tends to a nonzero constant at large speed. It is therefore incorrect to identify with a finite velocity dispersion or to infer this result by substituting an rms speed into a fluid formula.
For a regular Lagrangian define the canonical momentum components . Require the velocity Hessian to be invertible locally so that the velocities can be expressed in terms of . The Legendre transform in mechanics defines
The explicit time argument cannot generally be omitted when the given Lagrangian depends on time. Its differential is , since the terms cancel. The Euler-Lagrange equations give , and comparison yields Hamilton's equations:
For the time-independent stellar gravitational potential below, is conserved. Its sign convention differs from the binding energy in question 2: here is the ordinary specific orbital energy.
The prescribed nondegenerate prolate spheroidal coordinates require ; equality collapses the coordinate family. Their physical velocity components are , and . Per unit stellar mass the Lagrangian is , so . Its Hamiltonian is
This uses acceleration , as specified, rather than importing the opposite gravitational potential convention.
For the Stäckel potential, use the Hamilton-Jacobi equation with principal function . Axisymmetry makes constant. Write and . Multiplying by and using
separates it as , where . Each side depends on its own coordinate only and therefore equals a constant, chosen as . Here is the generating function of the gravitational potential, not the gravitational constant. Hence
This proves the conserved axisymmetric Stäckel third integral. Eliminating between the two expressions and using gives
At regular generic phase-space points the three separation constants are independent; special circular or degenerate orbits can reduce their local independence. Thus the model is an integrable Hamiltonian system.
For the intended regular, phase-mixed steady model, Jeans theorem permits a galactic distribution function . At any fixed point, and depend on and only through their squares, and depends only on . Thus is even separately in and , whether or not it is even in . Odd integration proves velocity-ellipsoid alignment in a Stäckel potential:
The argument allows azimuthal streaming: it does not require zero mean . The means in the two meridional directions vanish, so the off-diagonal velocity covariance also vanishes. Second moments must exist for this conclusion.
There is a hypothesis behind the printed universal wording. On a generic nonresonant regular invariant torus, a continuous steady distribution is constant along a dense orbit and hence depends only on the torus integrals; this justifies the phase-mixed form. Bare stationarity alone is not sufficient in a degenerate resonant gravitational potential with additional integrals. For example is a Stäckel Hamiltonian: choose , up to a constant vacuum shift. The additional conserved quantity gives a positive normalizable steady tracer for . Its local . At azimuth zero and a regular point where the direction has a radial component, this gives nonzero . This tracer need not itself source the harmonic gravitational potential. It exhibits why the stronger, ordinary phase-mixed three-integral assumption is necessary instead of claiming that every imaginable steady distribution has the asserted alignment.
The geometry follows by multiplying the coordinate-defining equation and evaluating at :
Constant surfaces are prolate spheroids, with equatorial semiaxis and polar semiaxis . Constant interior surfaces are two-sheeted hyperboloids. Their common foci lie at . The orbit volume in an axisymmetric Stäckel potential is determined by
Its allowed coordinate intervals have turning boundaries or coordinate endpoints. A typical bound orbit with oscillates between inner and outer spheroids, oscillates vertically between hyperboloidal limits, and circulates about the symmetry axis with . The equatorial fold joins the positive and negative branches; it is not necessarily a physical turning point in .
Figure 1.
Geometric volume swept out by an orbit
. Original schematic coordinate-bounded orbit volume. The meridional section and cutaway azimuthal sweep show inner/outer confocal spheroids and upper/lower hyperboloidal boundaries. Illustrative intervals are , with , . These are geometric examples, not a numerically integrated orbit in a specified gravitational potential.
For three incommensurate frequencies, the regular trajectory densely samples its projected allowed volume, with nonuniform occupation determined by its speeds. It does not follow one coordinate surface, and it need not close. Resonant orbits may be closed or lie in a smaller projected set; confines azimuthal motion to a meridional plane (with the usual axis coordinate qualification), and circular or equatorial limits are also lower-dimensional. Smooth Stäckel separation removes the generic chaotic behavior of nonintegrable potentials; it does not assert that every orbit fills a three-dimensional volume.