An Iterative Method for Constructing Equilibrium Phase Models of Stellar Systems

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.

14 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

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