Self-gravitating fluid systems and galactic dark matter

Abstract

We study gravitational collapse with anisotropic pressures, whose end stage can mimic space-times that are seeded by galactic dark matter. To this end, we identify a class of space-times (with conical defects) that can arise out of such a collapse process, and admit stable circular orbits at all radial distances. These have a naked singularity at the origin. An example of such a space-time is seen to be the Bertrand space-time discovered by Perlick, that admits closed, stable orbits at all radii. Using relativistic two- fluid models, we show that our galactic space-times might indicate exotic matter, i.e one of the component fluids may have negative pressure for a certain asymptotic fall off of the associated mass density, in the Newtonian limit. We complement this analysis by studying some simple examples of Newtonian two-fluid systems, and compare this with the Newtonian limit of the relativistic systems considered.