Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2000
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000astl...26..809b&link_type=abstract
Astronomy Letters, vol. 26, p. 809-820 (2000)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
7
Spiral Galaxies, Fourier Analysis, Line-Of-Sight Velocities
Scientific paper
Our main goal is to investigate the effects of data incompleteness on the results of Fourier analysis of line-of-sight velocity fields in the disks of spiral galaxies. We have carried out a number of numerical experiments, first with an artificially created simple velocity field and then with the velocity fields of two real galaxies, which qualitatively differ in data filling: NGC 157 and NGC 3631 with good and bad data filling, respectively. The field of purely circular velocities is chosen as the simplest artificial velocity field, because the circular velocities of spiral galaxies are much high than the residual (noncircular) velocities. Superimposing a "mask" simulating blank spots (holes) in the map of observational data on this artificial field has no effect on the results of Fourier analysis of this simplest field. A similar result is obtained for real galaxies with good data filling of the observed velocity fields. Superimposing arbitrarily shaped masks on the observed velocity field of NGC 157 in such a way that the field was filled by a mere 50% (at each radius) could not change appreciably the radial variations of large-scale Fourier harmonics. The situation qualitatively changes in attempting to fill the holes in the observed velocity field of NGC 3631 in some way. When missing velocities are artificially introduced by using the simplest model of purely circular gas rotation, the amplitudes and phases of the principal Fourier harmonics are distorted. In particular, a substantial distortion of the third harmonic also causes an increase in the error when determining the corotation radius from data of the filled field. When the filling of the velocity field is increased by degrading the spatial resolution, the amplitudes of most harmonics decrease throughout the entire disk region; as a result, their radial variations are smoothed out and the behavior of harmonic phases in the range of moderately high initial amplitudes can be distorted. An abnormal enhancement of the highest Fourier harmonics in the regions of low filling of the initial field is also possible. At the same time, despite the above distortions, the corotation radius determined from the smoothed fields matches that for the initial velocity fields. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Burlak A. N.
Fridman Alexei M.
Khoruzhi O. V.
Zasov Anatoli V.
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