Orbits Within Spherical Galaxies Model

April 29, 2011

The Orbits Within Spherical Galaxies model was published as a supplemental simulation for the article "Radial motion in a central potential for singular mass densities" by Ulrich Zürcher and Miron Kaufman in the American Journal of Physics 79(5), 521-526 (2011).  The model displays the two-dimensional trajectories of particles (stars) within a galaxy having a spherically symmetric mass distribution that heuristically approximates the distributions found in galaxies and bulges.

http://www.opensourcephysics.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=10583