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WALLABY, the
top-ranked spectral line survey that will be carried out with the Australian
SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP), will revolutionize our understanding of local galaxy
structure by resolving the HI distributions of thousands of nearby systems.
In the above image, simulated "channel maps" -- maps of the HI distribution
as a function of observing frequency -- of a typical WALLABY detection are
shown on the left, while the underlying disk geometry and rotation curve for
the corresponding galaxy are shown on the right. The WALLABY kinematics
working group is designing the analysis pipeline that will infer these
kinematic parameters from HI channel maps. Progress on this front is being
made using two-dimensional and three-dimensional fitting techniques, both of
which have shown promise for modelling different subsets of resolved WALLABY
detections. Integrating these approaches into a single, seamless pipeline
is one focus of the kinematics group splinter session that kicks off today
at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, bringing together researchers from
three continents to tackle this challenging task.
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