Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1997-10-31
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
15 pages, 4 EPS figures included in paper. Latex, uses AASTeX v4.0. To appear in Astrophys. J
Scientific paper
10.1086/305422
The stellar velocity fields of elliptical galaxies hold clues to their dynamical structure and origin. The construction of velocity field models is greatly simplified by assuming an approximate geometrical form for the streamlines of the mean stellar motions. We test the conjecture that confocal streamlines are a valid approximation for realistic triaxial systems. We numerically integrate orbits in Schwarzschild's logarithmic potential, and fit confocal streamlines to their mean velocity fields by minimizing the RMS magnitude of the cross product between the velocity vectors and the streamlines. We find that most orbits at a given energy can be fitted by nearly identical confocal systems. There are statistically significant differences between the streamline parameters obtained for different orbit families, but the differences are small. The fitted parameters reproduce, to high accuracy, the boundary between short axis and outer long axis tubes, which is a direct measure of the triaxiality of the potential. These results strongly support efforts to obtain accurate statistical measurements of triaxiality from kinematic observations and reasonably simple velocity field models.
Anderson Robert F.
Statler Thomas S.
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