Reconstructing two-integral distribution functions from moments
John Magorrian · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · 1995
I present a method for calculating distribution functions (DFs) of axisymmetric galaxy models which depend only on the two classical integrals of motion. It uses the higher-order Jeans equations to calculate the velocity moments of the model and reconstructs the DF from the moments as a Legendre series. Tests on models with known DFs indicate that the method generally works quite well, though it has problems coping with divergent DFs.