2011/02/22 by N. W. Evans, Evans, N. W.
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1102.4514
To appear in Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of India, Chandra Centennial Issue, eds D.J. Saikia and Virginia Trimble; 14 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2011/02/22 · arxiv updated 2011/02/23
Stellar dynamics occupied Chandrasekhar's interest for a brief interlude between his more prolonged studies of stellar structure and radiative transfer. This paper traces the history of one of his ideas -- namely, that the shape of the galactic potential controls the orientation of the stellar velocity dispersion tensor. It has its roots in papers by Eddington (1915) and Chandrasekhar (1939), and provoked a fascinating dispute between these two great scientists -- less well-known than their famous controversy over the white dwarf stars. In modern language, Eddington claimed that the integral curves of the eigenvectors of the velocity dispersion tensor provide a one-dimensional foliation into mutually orthogonal surfaces. Chandrasekhar challenged this, and explicitly constructed a counter-example. In fact, the work of neither of these great scientists was without flaws, though further developments in stellar dynamics were to ultimately draw more on Eddington's insight than Chandrasekhar's. We conclude with a description of modern attempts to measure the orientation of the velocity dispersion tensor for populations in the Milky Way Galaxy, a subject that is coming into its own with the dawning of the Age of Precision Astrometry.