Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 40 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For the spherical Abel deprojection, put and . Then and . Consequently the integral appearing in the reconstruction of isDifferentiate before substituting the numerical value of :For the projected second stellar velocity moment, . The identical substitution in isotropic stellar pressure deprojection givesFor completeness, setting yields , where is the Euler beta function. The Gamma function recurrence gives and . This also checks the normalization of the power-law spherical projection kernel.
The radial Jeans equation is . Since , division by the tracer number density givesWriting , the total gravitational acceleration is thereforeTo find all gravitating mass density, apply the Poisson equation for Newtonian gravity, with the same sign convention:Equivalently, the enclosed mass is , and . The inferred total mass is and its relative potential is , a Plummer model. The tracer number density has a different radial exponent from this total mass density. One must not multiply by an arbitrary stellar mass and identify it with all matter: the inferred field can include unobserved stars, gas, and dark matter.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 40 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
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. ThereforeHere 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 toThe 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 givesBecause 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 isThis 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 deprojectionReplacing by and by provesThese are the requested expressions, with . The composed-transform argument avoids an invalid separate differentiation of a divergent lower-end kernel.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 73 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
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 areHere 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, givesThe 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. ThereforeThis 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 , andFrom the Spherical Jeans equation, . Substitution producesThe 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 isTo 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. ThusBuilding the spherical mass shell by shell givesFinally, Fubini theorem and give the gravitational contribution to the residual integral explicitly:ConsequentlyThe 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.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 62 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Build the spherical system by bringing successive thin spherical shells in from infinity. The interior mass is , and the next shell has . By the spherical shell theorem, the interaction gravitational potential energy of that shell with the assembled interior is . Each pair of mass elements is counted exactly once in this construction. Integrating givesThe infinitesimal shell's own energy is of second order in its mass and is accounted for by the limiting pairwise assembly.
For spherical density projection, let run along the line of sight at projected radius . Spherical symmetry givesOn , use , so . The two halves of the line of sight contribute equally, yieldingTo derive the inverse Abel transform, set , , and . The projection becomes . Compose this with the same square-root kernel and exchange the convergent integrals:The inner integral equals , as follows from with . Write the left side as before differentiating; this avoids differentiating a singular moving endpoint. Under sufficient regularity and decay,Finally put . Since , this gives the spherical Abel deprojectionNext, the strip density of a spherical system is the integral across the projected coordinate perpendicular to the strip:For , the substitution on yieldsThere is a particularly simple way to compose these two projections: integrates the original mass density over the whole plane of coordinates . Polar coordinates in that plane, with , giveDifferentiation now provesThe central density, if finite, is obtained by taking the limit as .
To obtain gravitational binding energy from strip density, use in the shell-assembly result, and note also that . Two integrations by parts then giveHere ; the calculation assumes convergent binding energy and sufficient regularity and decay for these boundary terms to vanish. ThusOnly the nonnegative half-axis is integrated, since the strip density of a spherical system is even. Dimensionally, is mass per length, so the last expression has the units of energy.