Schwarzschild's method

English

Alternative forms

• Schwarzschild method

Etymology

Named after German-American astrophysicist Martin Schwarzschild (1912–1997).

Noun

Schwarzschild's method (uncountable)

1. (astrophysics, astronomy) A method to develop triaxial equilibrium kinematic models of actual galaxies (without knowledge of the motions of the component elements of the actual galaxies) using a grid and assigning masses and orbits, simulating gravitational evolution with the resulting estimated distributions, to compare with the actual galaxy, until a model results in similarity with the actual galaxy.
   • 2008, Daniel Benest, Topics in Gravitational Dynamics:

     This is because in Schwarzschild's method we seek to match the distribution of matter only in configuration space but we ignore the velocity distribution which is an outcome of the method for any particular solution $w_{o}$.

Derived terms

• Schwarzschild model (a model built by using the Schwarzschild's method)