A 3D steady state stellar dynamical model for the Galactic bar is constructed with 485 orbit building blocks using an extension of Schwarzschild technique. The weights of the orbits are assigned using the non-negative least square method. The model fits the density profile of the COBE light distribution, the observed solid body stellar rotation curve, the fall-off of minor axis velocity dispers...

I review recent studies about the gravitational potential and stellar dynamics of M87 in particular, and the dynamics of the stars in the presence of a super-massive central black hole, in general. At large radii, investigations of both the X-ray emitting gas and the velocity distribution of globular clusters indicate the presence of large amounts of non-luminous matter, possibly belonging to t...

Using adaptive optics on Keck and the VLT in the Hand K-bands, we have begun a project to probe the dynamics and star formation around AGN on scales of 0.1′′. The stellar content of the nucleus is traced through the 2.29 μm CO2-0 and 1.62μm CO6-3 absorption bandheads. These features are directly spatially resolved, allowing us to measure the extent and distribution of the nuclear star forming r...

We present projected velocity dispersion profiles for the Draco and Ursa Minor (UMi) dwarf spheroidal galaxies based on 207 and 162 discrete stellar velocities, respectively. Both profiles show a sharp decline in the velocity dispersion outside ∼ 30 (Draco) and ∼ 40 (UMi). New, deep photometry of Draco reveals a break in the light profile at ∼ 25. These data imply the existence of a kinematical...

Strong gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics provide two complementary and orthogonal constraints on the density profiles of galaxies. Based on spherically symmetric, scale-free, mass models, it is shown that the combination of both techniques is powerful in breaking the mass-sheet and mass-anisotropy degeneracies. Second, observational results are presented from the Lenses Structure & Dyn...

We have constructed families of possible orbits for a collection of stars located within 0.5” of Sgr A*. These are constrained by observed stellar positions and angular proper motions as listed in Ghez et al. (1998). Reconstructing these orbits allows us to make useful predictions for the likely positions of these stars in future observations. We also show that some of these stars may exhibit s...

The stellar-dynamical evolution of bound star clusters during the first few Myr is dominated by binary-binary and binary-star interactions, the rapid sinking of the most massive stars to the centre of the clusters and mass loss from evolving stars. The consequences of these processes for the binary and stellar population in clusters, and for the star clusters as a whole, are studied by followin...

We prove the existence and nonlinear stability of steady states of the Vlasov-Poisson system in the stellar dynamics case. The steady states are obtained as minimizers of an energy-Casimir functional from which fact their dynamical stability is deduced. The analysis applies to some of the well-known polytropic steady states, but it also considerably extends the class of known steady states.

The stellar dynamics of ω Centauri are inferred from the radial velocities of 469 stars measured with CORAVEL (Mayor et al. 1997). Rather than fit the data to a family of models, we generate estimates of all dynamical functions nonparametrically, by direct operation on the data. The cluster is assumed to be oblate and edge-on but mass is not assumed to follow light. The mean motions are consist...