The Kinematics of Thick Disks in Nine External Galaxies

Details The Kinematics of Thick Disks in Nine External Galaxies The Kinematics of Thick Disks in Nine External Galaxies

2008-04-24

arxiv.org/abs/0804.3966v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

17 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Scientific paper

10.1086/589553

We present kinematic measurements of thin and thick disk components in a sample of nine edge-on galaxies. We extract stellar and ionized gas rotation curves at and above the galaxies' midplanes using the Ca II triplet absorption features and H-alpha emission lines measured with the GMOS spectrographs on Gemini North and South. For the higher mass galaxies in the sample, we fail to detect differences between the thin and thick disk kinematics. In the lower mass galaxies, there is a wide range of thick disk behavior including thick disks with substantial lag and one counter-rotating thick disk. We compare our rotation curves with expectations from thick disk formation models and conclude that the wide variety of thick disk kinematics favors a formation scenario where thick disk stars are accreted or formed during merger events as opposed to models that form thick disks through gradual thin disk heating.

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