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The Individual Thicknesses of Stellar Disks of Galaxies Viewed at Arbitrary Angles

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Abstract

A method for determining the thickness of the stellar disk of a galaxy from a photometric image of the galaxy in the plane of the sky is proposed and justified. The method can be applied to determine the thickness of plane-parallel exponential disks with an arbitrary, radius-independent, luminosity distribution perpendicular to the plane of the disk J(r, z) = exp(-r/h)f(z). A special feature and advantage of the method is that it enables determination of the thicknesses of disks viewed at arbitrary angles to the plane of the sky (but not strictly edge-on or face-on). The key idea of the method is finding the true inclinations of galaxies viewed at arbitrary angles not from their isophotes, but instead from the azimuthal distribution of the exponential parameter h. The difference between the inclination determined in the traditional way using the isophotes and the true inclination enables estimation of the thickness of the disk. The effectiveness of the method for determining the inclinations of plane-parallel disks is confirmed using a sample of model isothermal galactic disks: I(r, z) = I0 exp(-r/h)sech2(z/z0). The inclinations of the planes of the model galaxies to the line of sight and the relative thicknesses in the model sample vary arbitrarily, making it possible to determine the limits of applicability of the method: z0/h < 0.7 and 10° <i < 75°.A sample of 44 piecewise-exponential disks of galaxies of the southern sky clusters is used to illustrate the application of the technique to observational data. Comparing the distribution of inclinations calculated using the new method and the traditional isophote method shows that the new method yields a more uniform distribution of inclinations to the plane of the sky for the sample galaxies. The derived average disk thicknesses and the disk-thickness distributions are consistent with statistical estimates and observational data from the literature for samples of galaxies viewed edge-on

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    E. M. Chudakova

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  1. E. M. Chudakova
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Chudakova, E.M. The Individual Thicknesses of Stellar Disks of Galaxies Viewed at Arbitrary Angles. Astron. Rep. 63, 353–364 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063772919050020

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063772919050020

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