English

Planetary Nebula Velocities in the Disk and Bulge of M31

Astrophysics 2009-11-11 v1

Abstract

We present radial velocities for a sample of 723 planetary nebulae (PNe) in the disk and bulge of M31, measured using the WYFFOS fibre spectrograph on the William Herschel telescope. Velocities are determined using the [OIII] 5007 Angstrom emission line. Rotation and velocity dispersion are measured to a radius of 50 arcminutes (11.5 kpc), the first stellar rotation curve and velocity dispersion profile for M31 to such a radius. Our kinematics are consistent with rotational support at radii well beyond the bulge effective radius of 1.4kpc, although our data beyond a radius of 5kpc are limited. We present tentative evidence for kinematic substructure in the bulge of M31 to be studied fully in a later work. This paper is part of an ongoing project to constrain the total mass, mass distribution and velocity anisotropy of the disk, bulge and halo of M31.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0603706,
  title  = {Planetary Nebula Velocities in the Disk and Bulge of M31},
  author = {C. Halliday and D. Carter and T. J. Bridges and Z. C. Jackson and M. I. Wilkinson and D. P. Quinn and N. W. Evans and N. G. Douglas and H. R. Merrett and M. R. Merrifield and A. J. Romanowsky and K. Kuijken and M. J. Irwin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0603706},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

27 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS