Anisotropy ansatz for the Jeans equations: oblate galaxies

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytical approach to understanding how anisotropy affects the Jeans equations in oblate galaxy models, emphasizing the role of galaxy flattening and providing guidelines for modeling and data interpretation.

Contribution

It develops a method to predict the impact of anisotropy on galaxy kinematics analytically, reducing reliance on numerical solutions, especially for oblate galaxy models.

Findings

More flattened galaxies support larger anisotropy values.

Galaxy flattening significantly influences the anisotropy effects.

Analytical models help interpret observational data and guide galaxy modeling.

Abstract

In the solution of the Jeans equations for axisymmetric galaxy models the ``$b$-ansatz" is often adopted to prescribe the relation between the vertical and radial components of the velocity dispersion tensor, and close the equations. However, $b$ affects the resulting azimuthal velocity fields quite indirectly, so that the analysis of the model kinematics is usually performed after numerically solving the Jeans equations, a time consuming approach. In a previous work we presented a general method to determine the main properties of the kinematical fields resulting in the $b$-ansatz framework before solving the Jeans equations; results were illustrated by means of disk galaxy models. In this paper we focus more specifically on realistic ellipsoidal galaxy models. It is found that how and where $b$ affects the galaxy kinematical fields is mainly dependent on the flattening of the stellar density distribution, moderately on the presence of a Dark Matter halo, and much less on the specific galaxy density profile. The main trends revealed by the numerical exploration, in particular the fact that more flattened systems can support larger $b$-anisotropy, are explained with the aid of simple ellipsoidal galaxy models, for which most of the analysis can be conducted analytically. The obtained results can be adopted as guidelines for model building and in the interpretation of observational data.