Two non-traditional applications of orbit-based modeling

Orbit-based modeling is a powerful way to construct dynamical models of galaxies. It has been used to measure the masses of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), constrain dark matter halos, and to recover information about the orbit structure of galaxies. This type of modeling usually goes hand in hand with the study of elliptical galaxies, however its applicability extends much further than this. In this thesis, I apply the well-studied technique of orbit-based modeling to two different types of galaxies—NGC 4594 (Sa) and Fornax (dSph).

In NGC 4594, I use orbit-based models to update the mass of the central SMBH, place new constraints on its dark matter halo, and analyze the internal moments of its distribution function. For Fornax, the focus is to determine the shape of the dark matter density profile as well as to learn what we can from the internal moments.