Compact Core--Shell Equilibria in Gravitational Vlasov--Poisson Systems with Positive and Negative Mass

Abstract

We construct regular, spherically symmetric, compact energy-cutoff equilibria for gravitational Vlasov--Poisson systems sourced by positive and negative mass distributions in the context of stellar dynamics. Motivated by Bondi's notion of negative mass and its relation to the weak field limit of Einstein gravity with a signed mass--energy source, we show that the internal structure of the steady states depends qualitatively on the type of negative mass present. In the Bondi convention, the signs of inertial, passive gravitational, and active gravitational mass are reversed together, preserving the equivalence principle. The resulting equilibria consist of a central overlap core containing both mass species, surrounded by a finite positive mass shell and an exterior vacuum. Thus, although a pure Bondi negative mass gas cannot form a compact steady state, Bondi negative mass can be spatially confined by a suitable positive mass distribution. In the gravitational-charge convention, only the passive and active gravitational masses change sign, so that the two species obey opposite free-fall laws and unlike masses repel. The resulting equilibria are spatially segregated into a negative mass core, a vacuum gap, a positive mass shell, and an exterior vacuum. For cutoff exponent $n=-1/2$, the radial matching is explicit, while for the regular cutoff $n=1/2$ the matter regions satisfy Lane--Emden-type equations. These results provide a kinetic framework for investigating the distribution of negative mass in astrophysical and cosmological settings.