ANISOTROPIC STELLAR-SYSTEMS WITH TANGENTIALLY BIASED VELOCITY DISPERSION

This paper provides a simple general procedure to construct self-consi stent spherical equilibrium models of stellar systems populated by sta rs in quasi-circular orbits. The focus on Maxwellian-like distribution s in the relevant velocity space and the use of the epicyclic expansio n allow us to work with physically intuitive models. Explicit solution s for a sequence of distribution functions with density distribution c lose to that of isochrone models are produced with varying degrees of pressure anisotropy. These results are meant to be the starting point for extensive stability analyses, and they may also be of interest for the construction of quantities such as projected velocity dispersion and line-of-sight-velocity profiles for comparison with observations o f elliptical galaxies.