The Rotation of Bulges

Abstract

I briefly review early and recent progress concerning the dynamical properties of bulges. I also show results from a study on the kinematics of bulges and disks in edge-on galaxies, where the bulge rotation curve is obtained with little contamination from the disk. I show that a proper structural analysis is crucial to understand such measurements. The results suggest that exponential bulges have a higher degree of rotational support than bulges with higher Sersic indexes, giving support to the concept that photometric bulges include different categories of stellar systems.

Invited talk presented at "Dynamics and Evolution of Disc Galaxies", conference held in Moscow and Pushchino, Russia, May 31 - June 4th, 2010. Proceedings will be published as an issue of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions. 6 pages; 2 figures (1 in color); 1 table