An Iterative Method for Constructing Equilibrium Phase Models of Stellar Systems

TL;DR

The paper introduces an iterative method for creating equilibrium phase models of stellar systems, capable of handling arbitrary geometries and constraints, useful for simulations and galaxy modeling.

Contribution

It presents a simple, powerful iterative approach for constructing equilibrium models with customizable parameters and constraints, applicable to diverse stellar systems.

Findings

Successfully models complex stellar geometries

Generates initial conditions for N-body simulations

Fits observational data of galaxies

Abstract

We present a new method for constructing equilibrium phase models for stellar systems, which we call the iterative method. It relies on constrained, or guided evolution, so that the equilibrium solution has a number of desired parameters and/or constraints. This method is very powerful, to a large extent due to its simplicity. It can be used for mass distributions with an arbitrary geometry and a large variety of kinematical constraints. We present several examples illustrating it. Applications of this method include the creation of initial conditions for N-body simulations and the modelling of galaxies from their photometric and kinematic observations.