Deconstructing Disk Velocity Distribution Functions in the Disk-Mass Survey

2008/01/31 by Kyle B. Westfall, Westfall, Kyle B., Matthew A. Bershady +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0801.4912

openalex publication_date 2008/01/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We analyze integral-field ionized gas and stellar line-of-sight kinematics in the context of determining the stellar velocity ellipsoid for spiral galaxies observed by the Disk-Mass Survey. Our new methodology enables us to measure, for the first time, a radial gradient in the ellipsoid ratio sigma_z / sigma_R. Random errors in this decomposition are 15% at two disk scale-lengths.

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