A&A 405, 455-471 (2003)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20030470

Minor axis kinematics of 19 S0-Sbc bulges

J. Falcón-Barroso¹, M. Balcells², R. F. Peletier^{1, 3} and A. Vazdekis<sup>2

1</sup>  School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
    e-mail: Reynier.Peletier@nottingham.ac.uk
²  Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
    e-mail: balcells@ll.iac.es; vazdekis@ll.iac.es
³  CRAL, Observatoire de Lyon, 69561 St-Genis Laval cedex, France

(Received 15 November 2002 / Accepted 18 March 2003 )

Abstract
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 Vazdekis et al. (2003), 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 (Cenarro et al. 2001a), 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.

Key words: galaxies: bulges -- galaxies: kinematics and dynamics -- galaxies: structure -- methods: data analysis

Offprint request: J. Falcón-Barroso, ppxjf2@nottingham.ac.uk

SIMBAD Objects

© ESO 2003

The OpenURL standard is a protocol for transmission of metadata describing the resource that you wish to access. An OpenURL link contains article metadata and directs it to the OpenURL server of your choice. The OpenURL server can provide access to the resource and also offer complementary services (specific search engine, export of references...). The OpenURL link can be generated by different means.

• If your librarian has set up your subscription with an OpenURL resolver, OpenURL links appear automatically on the abstract pages.
• You can define your own OpenURL resolver with your EDPS Account. In this case your choice will be given priority over that of your library.
• You can use an add-on for your browser (Firefox or I.E.) to display OpenURL links on a page (see http://www.openly.com/openurlref/). You should disable this module if you wish to use the OpenURL server that you or your library have defined.