Velocity Fields of Disk Galaxies

Abstract

Two dimensional velocity fields have been an important tool for nearly 30 years and are instrumental in understanding galactic mass distributions and deviations from an ideal galactic disk. Recently a number of new instruments have started to produce more detailed velocity fields of the disks and nuclear regions of galaxies. This paper summarizes some of the underlying techniques for constructing velocity fields and deriving rotation curves. It also urges to simulate observations from the data-cube stage to reject subtle biases in derived quantities such as rotation curves.