Introducing $\Delta V_{\star-g}$: a new universal kinematic disturbance parameter

TL;DR

The paper introduces a new kinematic disturbance parameter, $ riangle V_{ ext{star-g}}$, using integral field spectroscopy to compare stellar and gas velocity maps in galaxies, aiming to detect disturbances potentially missed by other methods.

Contribution

A novel universal kinematic disturbance parameter, $ riangle V_{ ext{star-g}}$, is proposed and demonstrated on MaNGA survey data to analyze galaxy kinematics.

Findings

No significant difference in $ riangle V_{ ext{star-g}}$ between AGN and inactive galaxies.

$ riangle V_{ ext{star-g}}$ captures kinematic disturbances without bias towards galaxy features.

The parameter helps assess whether AGN activity correlates with kinematic disturbances.

Abstract

We introduce a new kinematic disturbance parameter, $\Delta V_{\star-g}$ (pronounced `DVSG'), which takes advantage of integral field spectroscopy (IFS) to quantify differences between a galaxy's stellar and gas velocity maps. The motivation behind $\Delta V_{\star-g}$ is to capture disturbances in the kinematics of a galaxy that might be missed by alternative methods, while also attempting to minimize bias towards galaxy properties or features of the IFS data. We first detail the reasons for introducing this parameter, and explain how the $\Delta V_{\star-g}$ value of a galaxy can be calculated. We then present initial results using $\Delta V_{\star-g}$ to quantify the kinematic disturbance of obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) found in the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. We find that there is no statistically significant difference between the $\Delta V_{\star-g}$ distributions of AGN and a control sample (matched in mass and redshift) of inactive galaxies. This suggests that AGN triggering may not be preferentially caused by any distinct kinematic disturbance process, or combination of processes, beyond those observed in inactive galaxies.