Resonant structure in the disks of spiral galaxies, using phase-reversals in streaming motions from 2D H{\alpha} Fabry-Perot spectroscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method using phase-reversals in streaming motions from 2D Hα spectroscopy to identify resonance radii in spiral galaxy disks, enhancing understanding of galactic dynamics.

Contribution

The authors develop a technique to detect resonance radii in disk galaxies by analyzing velocity field reversals, providing a new tool for studying galactic structure and dynamics.

Findings

Resonance radii are identified as peaks in histograms of velocity reversals.

The method successfully correlates resonance locations with morphological features.

Results are consistent with previous measurements using other techniques.

Abstract

In this article we introduce a technique for finding resonance radii in a disk galaxy. We use a two-dimensional velocity field in H{\alpha} emission obtained with Fabry-Perot interferometry, derive the classical rotation curve, and subtract it off, leaving a residual velocity map. As the streaming motions should reverse sign at corotation, we detect these reversals, and plot them in a histogram against galactocentric radius, excluding points where the amplitude of the reversal is smaller than the measurement uncertainty. The histograms show well-defined peaks which we assume to occur at resonance radii, identifying corotations as the most prominent peaks corresponding to the relevant morphological features of the galaxy (notably bars and spiral arm systems). We compare our results with published measurements on the same galaxies using other methods and different types of data.