Precision determination of corotation radii in galaxy disks: Tremaine-Weinberg v. Font-Beckman for NGC 3433

TL;DR

This study compares two methods for determining corotation radii in galaxy disks, using multiple instruments and components, achieving consistent results that enhance confidence in these techniques for testing galaxy evolution theories.

Contribution

It provides a direct comparison of two corotation measurement methods applied to NGC 3433, validating their accuracy across different instruments and galaxy components.

Findings

Excellent agreement between methods and instruments.

Confirmed the reliability of corotation radius measurements.

Supports use of these methods in galaxy evolution studies.

Abstract

Density waves in galaxy disks have been proposed over the years, in a variety of specific models, to explain spiral arm structure and its relation to the mass distribution, notably in barred galaxies. An important parameter in dynamical density wave theories is the corotation radius, the galactocentric distance at which the stars and gas rotate at the same speed as the quasi-static propagating density wave. Determining corotation, and the pattern speed of a bar have become relevant to tests of cosmologically based theories of galaxy evolution involving the dynamical braking of bars by interaction with dark matter haloes. Here comparing two methods, one of which measures the pattern speed and the other the radius of corotation, using two instruments (an integral field spectrometer and a Fabry-Perot interferometer) and using both the stellar and interstellar velocity fields, we have determined the bar corotation radius, and three further radii of corotation for the SAB(s)b galaxy NGC3433. The results of both methods, with both instruments, and with both disk components give excellent agreement. This strengthens our confidence in the value of the two methods, and offers good perspectives for quantitative tests of different theoretical models.