On Multipolar Analytical Potentials for Galaxies

We present analytical potential-density pairs in three dimensions for the gravitational field of galaxies, obtained by thickening the multipolar expansion up to the quadrupole term. These may be interpreted as generalizations of the Miyamoto and Nagai potential-density pairs. With a suitable restriction on the possible values of the multipole moments, the density distributions are positive and monotone decreasing functions of the radial and axial coordinates.