Chaos and the Shapes of Elliptical Galaxies

Details Chaos and the Shapes of Elliptical Galaxies Chaos and the Shapes of Elliptical Galaxies

1996-01-17

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9601091v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

10 TEX pages, 3 PostScript figures, uses AASTEX, epsf.sty. To appear in SCIENCE, January 19, 1996

Scientific paper

10.1126/science.271.5247.337

Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations reveal that the density of stars in most elliptical galaxies rises toward the center in a power-law cusp. Many of these galaxies also contain central dark objects,possibly supermassive black holes. The gravitational force from a steep cusp or black hole will destroy most of the box orbits that constitute the ``backbone'' of a triaxial stellar system. Detailed modelling demonstrates that the resulting chaos can preclude a self-consistent, strongly triaxial equilibrium. Most elliptical galaxies may therefore be nearly axisymmetric, either oblate or prolate.

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