Velocity Dispersions Across Bulge Types

We present first results from a long‐slit spectroscopic survey of bulge kinematics in local spiral galaxies. Our optical spectra were obtained at the Hobby‐Eberly Telescope with the LRS spectrograph and have a velocity resolution of 45 km/s (σ*), which allows us to resolve the velocity dispersions in the bulge regions of most objects in our sample. We find that the velocity dispersion profiles in morphological classical bulge galaxies are always centrally peaked while the velocity dispersion of morphologically disk‐like bulges stays relatively flat towards the center—once strongly barred galaxies are discarded.