newtonian gravity - What is a reasonably accurate but simple model of the Milky Way's gravitational field?

I am putting together a toy program which shows how stars move around in the galaxy.

To run the simulation I need to know strength of the Milky Way's gravitational field at any location in it. I'm looking for a model (e.g. a collection of uniformly dense planes/rods) rather than a database of potentials.

Where can I get such a model?

I could simply construct an infinite plane of uniform density, but is that good enough? This is only a toy so I'm looking for something which preserves integrity of the overall shape and statistics of the galaxy, rather than worrying about the specific location of any particular star.

Answer

Note first that there are three different sources of gravitational potential: the disk, the bulge, and the dark halo.

There are a few different models of the gravitational field of the disk, two of the more common potentials are:

• Kuzmin model:
  $$\Phi(r,z)=-\frac{GM}{\sqrt{r^2+(a+|z|)^2}}$$



• Miyamoto-Nagai model:
  $$\Phi(r,z)=-\frac{GM}{\sqrt{r^2+(a+\sqrt{z^2+b^2})^2}}$$ where $a$ and $b$ are scale lengths.

For the bulge, you can use spherically symmetric potentials such as

• Plummer model:
  $$\Phi(r)=−\frac{GM}{\sqrt{r^2+a^2}}$$


• Jaffe model: $$\Phi(r)=\frac{GM}{a}\ln\left(\frac{r}{r+a}\right)$$ where $a$ also is a scale length and not necessarily the same as those for the disk.

The dark halo takes a spherical form, $$ \Phi(r)=\frac12V_h^2\ln\left(r^2+a^2\right) $$ where $V_h$ is the radial velocity of the galaxy at far distances ($\sim200$ km/s) and $a$ another scale length that isn't necessarily the same as above.

See also