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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
The structure of a galaxy model is described completely by its phase–space distribution function f. By Jeans' Theorem f can be written as a function of the integrals of motion admitted by the potential of the model. Various independent combinations of the integrals may be used as arguments of f; in many cases the action integrals are to be preferred. For a general N–body model, these can be obtained by numerical integration and subsequent spectral decomposition of each orbit (Binney and Spergel 1984).