The SAURON project - III. Integral-field absorption-line kinematics of 48 elliptical and lenticular galaxies

ABSTRACT We present the stellar kinematics of 48 representative elliptical and lenticular galaxies obtained with our custom‐built integral‐field spectrograph SAURON operating on the William Herschel Telescope. The data were homogeneously processed through a dedicated reduction and analysis pipeline....

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Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2004-08, Vol.352 (3), p.721-743
Main Authors: Emsellem, Eric, Cappellari, Michele, Peletier, Reynier F., McDermid, Richard M., Bacon, R., Bureau, M., Copin, Y., Davies, Roger L., Krajnović, Davor, Kuntschner, Harald, Miller, Bryan W., Tim de Zeeuw, P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics
galaxies: bulges
galaxies: elliptical and lenticular
galaxies: elliptical and lenticular, cD
galaxies: evolution
galaxies: formation
galaxies: kinematics and dynamics
galaxies: structure
Physics
Sciences of the Universe
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Summary:ABSTRACT We present the stellar kinematics of 48 representative elliptical and lenticular galaxies obtained with our custom‐built integral‐field spectrograph SAURON operating on the William Herschel Telescope. The data were homogeneously processed through a dedicated reduction and analysis pipeline. All resulting SAURON data cubes were spatially binned to a constant minimum signal‐to‐noise ratio. We have measured the stellar kinematics with an optimized (penalized pixel‐fitting) routine which fits the spectra in pixel space, via the use of optimal templates, and prevents the presence of emission lines to affect the measurements. We have thus generated maps of the mean stellar velocity V, the velocity dispersion σ, and the Gauss–Hermite moments h3 and h4 of the line‐of‐sight velocity distributions. The maps extend to approximately one effective radius. Many objects display kinematic twists, kinematically decoupled components, central stellar discs, and other peculiarities, the nature of which will be discussed in future papers of this series.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07948.x