The Yukawa and Exponential Potentials for a Galaxy’s Spherical Central Bulge*

Abstract

By adding an extra term to the Newtonian potential, matter outside the orbit of a star adds to the gravitational acceleration acting on that star. In this work, we solve the Poisson equation for non-Newtonian potentials of a spherically symmetric distribution of mass. We derive equations for calculating the centripetal acceleration and velocity of galactic disk stars that are due to the Newtonian and exponential potentials of the galaxy’s central bulge.