Dissipationless galaxy formation revisited

A large set of numerical simulations has been performed by using two different N-body codes to derive detailed properties of the end-product of dissipationless collapse. Three classes of initial mass distribution have been adopted, characterized by different inhomogeneity scales, with velocity dispersion corresponding to a virial ratio in a range $$5\times 10^{-4}-0.2$$. The results show that the phase space properties of the final equilibrium state depend strongly on the initial mass distribution. In particular, when the density profile has a long radial tail, the final projected density is in good agreement with the R^1/4 law, up to 16 mag in the best fit. The full three-dimensional result does not give any support to the negative temperature model for the phase space distribution function.