Minor axis kinematics of 19 S0-Sbc bulges

Falcón-Barroso, J.; Balcells, M.; Peletier, R. F.; Vazdekis, A.
Bibliographical reference

Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.405, p.455-471 (2003)

Advertised on:
7
2003
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
31
Refereed citations
28
Description
We present minor axis kinematic profiles for a well-studied sample of 19 early- to intermediate-type disk galaxies. We introduce, for the first time, the use of single-burst stellar population (SSP) models to obtain stellar velocities, velocity dispersions and higher order Gauss-Hermite moments (h3, h4) from galaxy spectra in the near-infrared Ca II triplet region. SSP models, which employs the synthetic spectra of citet{vazdekis03}, provide a means to address the template-mismatch problem, and are shown to provide as good or better fits as traditional stellar templates. We anticipate the technique to be of particular use for high-redshift galaxy kinematics. We give the measurement of a recently defined CaT* index citep{cenarro01}, and describe the global properties of the bulge kinematics as derived from the kinematic profiles. We detect small-amplitude minor-axis rotation, generally due to inner isophotal twists as a result of slightly triaxial bulges or misaligned inner disks; such inner features do not show peculiar colors or distinct CaT* index values. Velocity dispersion profiles, which extend well into the disk region, show a wide range of slopes. Flattened bulges tend to have shallower velocity dispersion profiles. The inferred similarity of bulge and disk radial velocity dispersions supports the interpretation of these bulges as thickened disks. Appendix B is only available in electronic form at http://www.edpsciences.org