The dark matter halo shape of edge-on disk galaxies - II. Modelling the
  HI observations: methods
  This is the second paper of a series in which we attempt to put constraints
on the flattening of dark halos in disk galaxies. For this purpose, we observe
the HI in edge-on galaxies, where it is in principle possible to measure the
force field in the halo vertically and radially from gas layer flaring and
rotation curve decomposition respectively. To calculate the force fields, we
need to analyse the observed XV diagrams to accurately measure all three
functions that describe the planar kinematics and distribution of a galaxy: the
radial HI surface density, the rotation curve and the HI velocity dispersion.
In this paper, we discuss the improvements and limitations of the methods
previously used to measure these HI properties. We extend the constant velocity
dispersion method to include determination of the HI velocity dispersion as a
function of galactocentric radius and perform extensive tests on the quality of
the fits. We will apply this 'radial decomposition XV modelling method' to our
HI observations of 8 HI-rich, late-type, edge-on galaxies in the third paper of
this series.
