The stellar velocity dispersion in nearby spirals: radial profiles and correlations

Abstract

The stellar velocity dispersion, $\sigma$, is a quantity of crucial importance for spiral galaxies, where it enters fundamental dynamical processes such as gravitational instability and disc heating. Here we analyse a sample of 34 nearby spirals from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) spectroscopic survey, deproject the line-of-sight $\sigma$ to $\sigma_{R}$ and present reliable radial profiles of $\sigma_{R}$ as well as accurate measurements of $\langle\sigma_{R}\rangle$, the radial average of $\sigma_{R}$ over one effective (half-light) radius. We show that there is a trend for $\sigma_{R}$ to increase with decreasing $R$, that $\langle\sigma_{R}\rangle$ correlates with stellar mass ($M_{\star}$) and tested correlations with other galaxy properties. The most significant and strongest correlation is the one with $M_{\star}$: $\langle\sigma_{R}\rangle \propto M_{\star}^{0.5}$. This tight scaling relation is applicable to spiral galaxies of type Sa $\mbox{--}$ Sd and stellar mass $M_{\star}\approx10^{9.5}\mbox{--}10^{11.5}\ \mbox{M}_{\odot}$. Simple models that relate $\sigma_{R}$ to the stellar surface density and disc scale length roughly reproduce that scaling, but overestimate $\langle\sigma_{R}\rangle$ significantly.