Spherical galaxy models with power-law logarithmic slope

Abstract

We present a new family of spherically symmetric models for the luminous components of elliptical and spiral galaxies and their dark matter haloes. Our starting point is a general expression for the logarithmic slope α(r) = d log ρ/d log r from which most of the cuspy models yet available in literature may be derived. We then dedicate our attention to a particular set of models where the logarithmic slope is a power-law function of the radius r investigating in detail their dynamics assuming isotropy in the velocity space. While the basic properties (such as the density profile and the gravitational potential) may be expressed analytically, both the distribution function and the observable quantities (the surface brightness and the line-of-sight velocity dispersion) have to be evaluated numerically. We also consider the extension to anisotropic models, trying two different parametrization. As the model recently proposed by Navarro et al. as the best fit to their sample of numerically simulated haloes belongs to the family we present here, analytical approximations are given for the most useful quantities. © 2005 RAS.