Stability of general relativistic static thick disks: the isotropic Schwarzschild thick disk

Abstract

We study the stability of general relativistic static thick disks. As an application we consider the thick disk generated by applying the “displace, cut, fill and reflect” method, usually known as the image method, to the Schwarzschild metric in isotropic coordinates. The isotropic Schwarzschild thick disk obtained from this method is the simplest model to describe, in the context of General Relativity, real thick galaxies. Stability under a general first order perturbation of the disk energy momentum tensor is investigated. The first order perturbation, when applied to the conservation equations, leads to a set of differential equations that have fewer equations than unknowns. In this article we search for perturbations in which the perturbation of the four velocity in a certain direction leads to a pressure perturbation in the same direction. We found that, in general, the isotropic Schwarzschild thick disk is stable under these kinds of perturbations.