Poster Title: Stellar Populations in Bulges of Spiral Galaxies
Abstract: Bhasker K. Moorthy and Jon A. Holtzman New Mexico State University
We have obtained line strengths and gradients in the central regions of approximately 30 galaxies ranging in Hubble type from S0 to Sc. Our indices have been fully tranformed to the Lick system and corrected for velocity dispersion, rotation, and emission. Disk contamination is addressed through two dimensional bulge-to-disk decomposition. We find that bulges of most S0 and Sa galaxies are similar to ellipticals in their stellar populations. We do find some early type bulges with considerably smaller luminosity-weighted SSP ages but these either have disk-like kinematics or evidence of recent mergers. Late-type bulges occupy a wider range of luminosity-weighted ages and metallicities than early types. Most bulges have strong metallicity gradients and no age gradient. The gradients are not correlated with Hubble type. Bulges have no gradient in Mg/Fe and few bulges have larger Mg/Fe values than their disks.
Link to poster: N/A