Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1997

Publication Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

287

Issue Number

1

First Page

35

Last Page

50

DOI

10.1093/mnras/287.1.35

Disciplines

Astrophysics and Astronomy

Abstract

Quantitative dynamical models of galaxies require deprojection of the observed surface brightness to determine the luminosity density of the galaxy. Existing deprojection methods for axisymmetric galaxies assume that a unique deprojection exists for any given inclination, even though the projected density is known to be degenerate to the addition of ‘konus densities’ that are invisible in projection. We develop a deprojection method based on linear regularization that can explore the range of luminosity densities that are statistically consistent with an observed surface brightness distribution. The luminosity density is poorly constrained at modest inclinations (i ≿ 30°), even in the limit of vanishing observational errors. In constant mass-to-light ratio, axisymmetric, two-integral dynamical models, the uncertainties in the luminosity density result in large uncertainties in the meridional plane velocities. However, the projected line-of-sight velocities show variations comparable to current typical observational uncertainties.

Comments

Copyright © 1997 Oxford University Press. The published article may be found at :http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/287.1.35.

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