Saturday, 22 February 2014

orbit - What is meant by matter distribution?

I assume you are referring to the rotation curve of galaxies, i.e. the speed of matter (stars, gas clouds, etc.) as a function of its distance from the center. This speed will depend on the matter distribution, that is, how the galaxies' constituents are distributed throughout the galaxies.



Keplerian rotation



If (almost) all of the mass $M$ were located in the center, then a star at a distance $R$ would have a speed $V = sqrt{GM/R}$. This is called Keplerian rotation, because this is how planets in the Solar system move, which were described by Johannes Kepler. In this case, the mass inside a radius $R$ is (almost) constant, i.e. $M'(<R) = M$.



Flat rotation



Most disk galaxies have a large concentration of visible mass in the center (the "bulge"), so one might think that Keplerian rotation would be a good description of the stars' speeds. But this is not what is observed. In fact, the speed is seen to rise steeply the first few kpc, and then stay constant out to distances where no light is detected. This will happen if the mass $M'(<R)$ inside $R$ increases with $R$, i.e. if the matter is distributed throughout the galaxy. This is one of several pieces of evidence that 1) there exists some matter that we cannot see, in addition to what we can see, 2) that this matter dominates the kinematics of the galaxies, and 3) that it resides in a halo that extends beyond the visible matter. We call it dark matter.



Solid body rotation



If in addition to a given matter distribution the distances between the individual parts are fixed, the object we are discussing would describe a solid body. Of course this can't be the case for a galaxy, but it will be the case for a rocky planet. In this case the velocity of a given point will depend linearly on its perpendicular distance to the axis of rotation, i.e. $V propto R$.



Density profile of the matter distribution



Excactly how the matter is distributed in the galaxy is not easily deducted, and varies from galaxy type to galaxy type. An early description of the matter density as a function of distance from the center was the so-called NFW profile, but other models may be better, e.g. a Sérsic profile or an Einasto profile.



So, to summarize, the term "matter distribution" refers to density as a function of location, i.e. $rho(mathbf{r})$, for some object. This can be for any object — solid, liquid, gaseous, or consisting of several components that are held together by gravity — but in any case it is true that its form determines its rotation, and the three different rotation forms you mention are often discussed in the context of galaxies.




The three different cases are illustratred below. Keplerian, solid, and flat rotation are drawn in green, red, and blue, respectively. For comparison, a typical spiral galaxy velocity curve is drawn in magenta.



rotation

No comments:

Post a Comment