Testing the robustness of DYNAMITE triaxial Schwarzschild modelling
- Author(s)
- Sabine Thater, Prashin Jethwa, Behzad Tahmasebzadeh, Ling Zhu, Mark den Brok, Giulia Santucci, Yuchen Ding, Adriano Poci, Edward Lilley, P. Tim de Zeeuw, Alice Zocchi, Thomas I. Maindl, Fabio Rigamonti, Glenn van de Ven, Meng Yang, Katja Fahrion
- Abstract
In the past 15 yr, the triaxial Schwarzschild orbit-superposition code developed by van den Bosch and van de Ven in Leiden has been widely applied to study the dynamics of galaxies. Recently, a bug was reported in the orbit calculation of this code, specifically in the mirroring procedure that is used to speed up the computation. We have fixed the incorrect mirroring in the DYNAMITE code, which is the publicly-released successor of the Leiden triaxial Schwarzschild code. In this study, we provide a thorough quantification of how this bug has affected the results of dynamical analyses performed with this code. We compare results obtained with the original and corrected versions of DYNAMITE, and discuss the differences in the phase-space distribution of a single orbit and in the global stellar orbit distribution, in the mass estimate of the central black hole in the highly triaxial galaxy PGC 46832, and in the measurement of intrinsic shape and enclosed mass for more than 50 galaxies. Focusing on the typical scientific applications of the Schwarzschild method, in all our tests we find that differences are negligible with respect to the statistical and systematic uncertainties. We conclude that previous results with the Leiden triaxial Schwarzschild code are not significantly affected by the incorrect mirroring.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, University of New South Wales, ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), Durham University, Leiden University, Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Università degli Studi dell'Insubria, INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Milano, HE Space Operations BV
- Journal
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Volume
- 667
- No. of pages
- 17
- ISSN
- 0004-6361
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202243926
- Publication date
- 11-2022
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103004 Astrophysics
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/f23d41de-ce52-4164-87c0-668b09e30001