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Spirographic Orbit of a Star in Extended Mass Distribution


	This Demonstration shows the orbit of a point mass through a Hernquist potential, which represents a star moving through a spherically symmetric extended mass distribution with a density profile of the form , where and is the length scale of the potential. This type of mass density has been used to model physical systems such as dark matter halos, elliptical galaxies, and embedded young star clusters.


	Contributed by: Ted Landis, Jeremy Spitzig, and Lisa Holden
	Show Initialization Code

is the total mass of the system as

in solar masses.

is the length scale of the potential in astronomical units (AU).

is the initial position of the point mass on the

axis (also in AU).

is the initial velocity of the point mass (in AU/year).

is the integration time in years.

Reference:

L. Hernquist, "An Analytical Model for Spherical Galaxies and Bulges," The Astrophysical Journal, 365, 1990 pp. 359–364.

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