Paper detail

3D-Barolo: a new 3D algorithm to derive rotation curves of galaxies

We present 3D-Barolo, a new code that derives rotation curves of galaxies from emission-line observations. This software fits 3D tilted-ring models to spectroscopic data-cubes and can be used with a variety of observations: from HI and molecular lines to optical/IR recombination lines. We describe the structure of the main algorithm and show that it performs much better than the standard 2D approach on velocity fields. A number of successful applications, from high to very low spatial resolution data are presented and discussed. 3D-Barolo can recover the true rotation curve and estimate the intrinsic velocity dispersion even in barely resolved galaxies (about 2 resolution elements) provided that the signal to noise of the data is larger that 2-3. It can also be run automatically thanks to its source-detection and first-estimate modules, which make it suitable for the analysis of large 3D datasets. These features make 3D-Barolo a uniquely useful tool to derive reliable kinematics for both local and high-redshift galaxies from a variety of different instruments including the new-generation IFUs, ALMA and the SKA pathfinders.