Does the Hubble Profile of Surface Brightness Lead to Infinite Total Luminosity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Logarythmic
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Luminosity Physics
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
3 replies · 3K views
Logarythmic
Messages
277
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement


Show that the Hubble profile of surface brightness

[tex]I(r) = I_0 \left(1+\frac{r}{R}\right)^{-2}[/tex]

leads to an infinite total luminosity. r is the distance from the center and R is a constant.


2. The attempt at a solution
For large r this is related as

[tex]I(r) \propto r^{-2}[/tex]

but how is the surface brightness related to the total luminosity?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Can't you find it in the textbook ? Even though the problem seems to be purely mathematical (basically a computation which gives infinity as its result), you have problems in the conceptual domain. Well, the/my advice is to look again in the book.
 
I have, all there is about this is one half page of text.
 
This is still a problem... Haven't anyone dealt with this before?