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Are orbiting masses in a uniform disc affected by masses outside its orbit?

Physics Asked on January 12, 2021

For a sphere of uniform density, we know an orbiting mass experiences a net attraction only by the mass inside its orbit, and that the mass outside its orbit exerts a net zero force (using Newton’s Laws).

If we assume a uniform disc of mass such as an idealized galaxy, does the mass outside the orbit still NOT influence the orbit?

If interested, the motivation for this question comes from a recent publication on Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). Unique prediction of ‘modified gravity’ challenges dark matter

"…MOND made a bold prediction: the internal motions of an object in the cosmos should not only depend on the mass of the object itself, but also the gravitational pull from all other masses in the universe–called "the external field effect" (EFE)"

Although MOND and Newtonian dynamics use different treatments depending on the acceleration scale, I am trying to understand how and if external masses affect galaxies in general when assuming Newtonian dynamics. ie. discriminating the differences between Newton and MOND.

Conceptual explanations are helpful along with math.

3 Answers

To answer I would use gauss theorem: $$ iint_{S} vec{g} cdot d vec{S}=-4 pi G iiint_{V} rho_{m} mathrm{~d} V=-4 pi G M_{mathrm{int}} $$ Assuming the disk is a very thin cylinder we could write $S$ as: $$ S = S_{top} cup S_{bottom} cup S_{side}$$ Splitting the first integral you'll obtain terms not equal to zero: $$LHS = 2pi R e g + pi R^2 g + pi R^2g $$ If $e$ is the thickness of the cylinder: $$2pi Rg(e+R) = -4pi G (pi R^2e)$$ This gives us: $$ g = -frac{2pi GRe}{e+R} $$ So I would say the outside doesn't affect the inside but I'm very skeptical on my own answer:

  1. I remember applying Gauss theorem in non spherical case can be tricky
  2. I hadn't use this theorem for a while so I'm not sure about the computation

However I'm very interested by your question because I'm currently having an interest for MOND theory, I'll follow this.

Answered by starcluster on January 12, 2021

Are orbiting masses in a uniform disc affected by masses outside its orbit?

Yes.

The gravitational potential inside a massive ring or annulus (in the plane of the ring or annulus) is not uniform. There is no “Ring Theorem” similar to the Shell Theorem. Since the potential is not uniform, there is a gravitational field from the outer mass.

The potential inside a ring can be calculated in the usual way by integrating $-G,dM/r$, the potential due to each infinitesimal mass $dM$ along the ring. For a ring, you do a one-dimensional integral around the ring in terms of an angle $theta$. The distance $r$ between the mass element and the position where you are calculating the potential is a varying function of $theta$ (except at the center). The integral is messy; it can be expressed in terms of $K(k)$, the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. It doesn't seem important to give details; the point is that the potential turns out to be a function of the distance from the center rather than a constant.

An annulus can be treated as a collection of concentric rings.

Answered by G. Smith on January 12, 2021

There is apparently a result due to O. D. Kellogg that says the potential within a uniformly-charged ellipsoid is quadratic. Wei Cai gives a closed form (eqn 80 & 83) for the potential within a uniformly-charged thin oblate ellipsoid (i.e. similar to a uniformly charged plate and perhaps equally relevant). This leads to the result that the field is given by $crhopi^2r/a$. Here, $rho$ is the density, $2c$ is the thickness of the ellipsoid and $a$ is its outer radius.
If I'm interpreting this correctly, it says that the field varies linearly with radius, r, inside the ellipsoid, but inversely with the outer radius. This result seems a little surprising. It does seem to say that the field at a given radius will drop as material is added outside that radius. So this differs from the result for a sphere.

Answered by Roger Wood on January 12, 2021

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