Rotating-frame effective potential (${\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}=\Phi -\frac{1}{2}|\mathbf{\omega }\times \mathbf{r}{|}^2$)

For uniform rotation, the Newtonian gravitational potential plus the centrifugal potential generates the non-Coriolis part of the equation of motion in a rotating frame. Stationary particles obey $\nabla {\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}=0$. The Coriolis force changes perturbation dynamics, so curvature of this potential alone is not a general rotating-frame stability criterion.

For a uniformly rotating incompressible fluid of constant mass density, pressure and conservative body forces combine as the gradient of this scalar. The centrifugal term has a negative sign. Pressure enforces incompressible flow, whereas the velocity-dependent Coriolis force remains explicit and cannot be included in a scalar position potential. Adding a spatially constant function of time to $\psi$ does not change the motion.