Resonant structure in the disks of spiral galaxies, using phase reversals in streaming motions from two-dimensional Hα Fabry-Perot spectroscopy

Abstract

In this Letter, we introduce a technique for finding resonance radii in a disk galaxy. We use a two-dimensional velocity field in Hα 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. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.