Spiral Galaxies in the SAURON Survey

Abstract

We discuss some recent integral field spectroscopy using the SAURON instrument of a sample consisting of 24 early-type spirals, part of the SAURON Survey, and 18 late-type spirals. Using 2-dimensional maps of their stellar radial velocity, velocity dispersion, and absorption line strength, it is now much easier to understand the nature of nearby galactic bulges. We discuss a few highlights of this work, and point out some new ideas about the formation of galactic bulges.

6 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX. To appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 245 "Formation and Evolution of Galaxy Bulges", M. Bureau, E. Athanassoula, and B. Barbuy, eds; a high resolution version available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~peletier/Peletier_iaus245.pdf