Set , , , with , and . Differentiating the position vector gives pairwise orthogonal coordinate tangents and the displayed scale factors of orthogonal coordinates. Thus the positive volume density is . The ordered Jacobian determinant is negative for the order ; volume uses its absolute value. Positive constant surfaces are oblate spheroids. For , constant gives the half of the one-sheet hyperboloid with the sign of fixed by . At the coordinates cover the equatorial disk, while covers the exterior equatorial plane.
Nuclear deformation 2026-10-18
Departure of an intrinsic nuclear shape from spherical symmetry. Here intrinsic means referred to axes attached to a model nuclear charge distribution. A nuclear quantum state with definite spin need not have the same laboratory charge density as that intrinsic distribution. In particular, the ground state of a deformed even-even nucleus can have , a spherical laboratory expectation value, and a nonzero intrinsic nuclear quadrupole moment.
For an illustrative uniform charge density inside a spheroid, let the semiaxes be and keep its volume equal to that of a sphere of radius :
Thus gives a prolate spheroid, a sphere, and an oblate spheroid. These are three-dimensional equal-volume shapes: equal areas of their drawn cross-sections would be a different constraint. Real nuclear charge distributions have diffuse surfaces and need not be uniform, axially symmetric or confined to one shape.
Figure 1.
Equal-volume prolate, spherical and oblate intrinsic shapes
. Original spheroid geometry with chosen axis ratios . Each has . The surfaces illustrate shape coordinates, rather than literal arrangements or photographs of nucleons. The indicated signs refer to the intrinsic nuclear quadrupole moment of positive uniform charge density. Details.
Use the stellar position second-moment tensor . This is the entering the tensor virial theorem, rather than the engineering moment-of-inertia tensor . For a density pattern rotating steadily about its third principal axis, choose when its in-plane axes are principal axes. Then and
In particular, , , and , while and . Two differentiations at prove the inertia-tensor acceleration of a steadily rotating stellar pattern:
Both the off-diagonal acceleration and the in-plane trace acceleration vanish at this instant.
Write for the local mean streaming. The stellar kinetic-energy tensor, stellar pressure-energy tensor, and stellar potential-energy tensor have the conventions
For an isolated self-gravitating system, . Subtracting its second diagonal component from the first gives
so
This quotient requires . In an axisymmetric density distribution it becomes : rotating the pattern about its symmetry axis does not change the density, and this equation cannot determine a pattern speed. Stellar streaming need not be rigid rotation with angular frequency .
Next add the first two diagonal virial equations and use the third. Their acceleration terms vanish, so
For , . With the planar virial trace and , the prescribed mass-weighted quantities satisfy , , and . Therefore and the planar equation becomes
Eliminating gives
The in the numerator of the PDF's displayed relation is a notation slip: the velocity subsequently defined is . The relation follows from the traces, not from replacing a galaxy by a solid rotating body.
For the axisymmetric oblate spheroid, rotational symmetry gives , and zero integrated off-diagonal random stresses. A line-of-sight unit vector can be chosen as , with face-on. Contracting the random stress tensor with this vector gives the inclination projection of an axisymmetric stellar velocity tensor:
This is a mass-weighted random velocity dispersion after subtracting streaming, with consistent aperture weights. Along the projected major axis, azimuthal streaming lies along the direction whose line-of-sight projection is ; a rotation amplitude consequently projects as
There is a necessary observational convention here. The globally defined is a streaming mean square. The displayed amplitude relation holds if the rotation curve is constant, or if the measured rotation-amplitude statistic is weighted consistently to represent this intrinsic quantity. Axisymmetry alone does not equate an arbitrary observed peak rotation to the global . If instead means the full-aperture line-of-sight streaming root-mean-square, azimuthal averaging yields
and the corresponding root-mean-square is . Keeping amplitude and root-mean-square distinct prevents a spurious factor of two in the kinetic energy.
Finally, let the intrinsic equatorial and polar semiaxes be and , and put . An intrinsic boundary has . Its sky minor-axis coordinate is . Eliminating the line-of-sight coordinate, or maximizing on this ellipse, gives the projected minor semiaxis ; the major semiaxis remains . Thus the projected axis ratio of an oblate spheroid is
Subtracting from unity proves
The face-on limit is round with zero projected rotation amplitude; the edge-on limit reveals the intrinsic flattening and in-plane random velocity dispersion. These limits check both the geometry and the convention for inclination.
Choose intrinsic Cartesian coordinates in which the oblate spheroid is
Let be distance along the line of sight and let be the sky coordinate in the plane containing the line of sight and the symmetry axis. A rotation through the inclination gives
Substitution into the ellipsoid equation and minimization over , equivalently requiring the quadratic in to have zero discriminant on the projected boundary, gives
Therefore the projected axis ratio of an oblate spheroid is
It correctly gives face-on and edge-on.
Use the principal coordinates
Part (c) puts the equation in the canonical form
If , all three coefficients are positive: the surface is an ellipsoid with semiaxes , and along the three eigenvectors listed in part (c).
If , the equation is independent of : it is an elliptic cylinder parallel to , with cross-sectional semiaxes and .
If , the form has two positive coefficients and one negative coefficient: it is a one-sheet hyperboloid, with axis and waist ellipse at . Its axial scale is .
These are the three cases of the signature transition from an ellipsoid to an elliptic cylinder and a one-sheet hyperboloid. At the repeated eigenvalues and , principal axes in the corresponding two-dimensional eigenspace are not unique: the ellipsoid is respectively an oblate spheroid about the axis or a prolate spheroid about the axis.
Put . For , elimination of gives
These are oblate spheroids with equatorial radius and polar radius , flattened along the axis. At the limiting surface is the disk , .
For , elimination of instead gives
These are one-sheet hyperboloids of revolution, restricted to their upper half for and lower half for . The restriction matters because . At , the surface degenerates to the exterior equatorial plane , ; at it degenerates to the corresponding half of the axis.
Finally, fixed specifies a vertical half-plane through the axis, with horizontal direction . The two values and together give a full plane. These surfaces form the mutually orthogonal families of the hyperbolic parametrization of oblate spheroidal coordinates.
For a nondegenerate surface take , and abbreviate , . Close the upper oblate spheroid by its equatorial disk , obtaining a half-ellipsoid . The divergence is
The integral of vanishes by reflection symmetry. At height , the cross-section is a disk of radius . Using planar polar coordinates,
Consequently
The outward unit normal vector on is , so its flux is . Applying the divergence theorem to the closed surface and subtracting this disk contribution gives
This is a special case of polynomial flux through a half-ellipsoid. Including the closing disk is essential: the constant vertical component has zero divergence but nonzero flux through the open curved surface.
If the symmetry axis of an oblate spheroid makes angle with the line of sight, its projected axis ratio satisfies
Thus a face-on spheroid appears round and an edge-on spheroid reveals its intrinsic axis ratio.
Spheroid 2026-10-14
A spheroid is an ellipsoid of revolution obtained by rotating an ellipse about a principal axis. Rotation about the shorter axis gives an oblate spheroid; rotation about the longer axis gives a prolate spheroid. Thus the oblate form is a member of the general family.