Kinematics of gas in a triaxial galaxy

The morphology and kinematics of cold gas in a triaxial Staeckel potential are discussed. The properties of the gas disks and rings and their projections are examined. How observations of a ring or disk can be used to constrain the orientation of the galaxy with respect to the observer and how the intrinsic shape can be determined are analyzed, and it is shown how the full three-dimensional potential can be derived if the aspect angles are known. It is found that some of the principal techniques for the deprojection are independent of the assumption that the galaxy is of Staeckel form, and are applicable to all realistic galaxy potentials without figure rotation. 53 refs