The Inner Scale Length of Spiral Galaxy Rotation Curves

Abstract

We use the tapering effect of Halpha/[NII] rotation curves of spiral galaxies first noted by Goad & Roberts (1981) to investigate the internal extinction in disks. The scale length of exponential fits to the inner part of rotation curves depends strongly on the disk axial ratio. Preliminary modelling of the effect implies substantial opacity of the central parts of disks at a wavelength of 0.66 \mu. In addition, the average kinematic scale length of rotation curves, when corrected to face--on perspective, has a nearly constant value of about 1.7 h^{-1} kpc, for all luminosity classes. The interpretation of that effect, as the result of the increasing dominance of the baryonic mass in the inner parts of galaxies, yields a mean baryonic mass--to--light ratio in the I band \Upsilon_I= 2.7h M_sun/L_{sun,I}, within the inner 1.7 h^{-1} kpc of disks.