Hs. Zhao et F. Prada, NEW PARAMETRIZATIONS OF NON-GAUSSIAN LINE-OF-SIGHT VELOCITY DISTRIBUTION, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 282(4), 1996, pp. 1223-1235
A five-parameter fitting formula for the line-of-sight stellar velocit
y distributions (LOSVDs) of steady-state systems is proposed. It can f
aithfully reproduce velocity distributions of theoretical models rangi
ng from nearly Gaussian profiles to strongly skewed or mildly double-p
eaked profiles. In contrast to the assumptions of van der Marel & Fran
x and Kuijken & Merrifield, the LOSVDs are required to have neither mu
ltipeaks nor negative velocity wings and most information can be recov
ered from no more than five physically meaningful fitting parameters.