Bibcode
                                    
                            DOI
                                    
                            Balcells, Marc; Graham, Alister W.; Domínguez-Palmero, Lilian; Peletier, Reynier F.
    Bibliographical reference
                                    The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 582, Issue 2, pp. L79-L82.
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                        1
            
                        2003
            
  Journal
                                    
                            Citations
                                    175
                            Refereed citations
                                    155
                            Description
                                    We use Hubble Space Telescope (HST) near-infrared imaging to explore the
shapes of the surface brightness profiles of bulges of S0-Sbc galaxies
at high resolution. Modeling extends to the outer bulge via bulge-disk
decompositions of combined HST-ground-based profiles. Compact, central
unresolved components similar to those reported by others are found in
~84% of the sample. We also detect a moderate frequency (~34%) of
nuclear components with exponential profiles that may be disks or bars.
Adopting the Sérsic r1/n functional form for the
bulge, none of the bulges have an r1/4 behavior; derived
Sérsic shape indices are =1.7+/-0.7. For the same sample, fits to
near-infrared ground-based profiles yield Sérsic indices up to
n=4-6. The high n of ground-based profiles are the result of nuclear
point sources blending with the extended light of the bulge because of
seeing. The low Sérsic indices are not expected from violent
relaxation in mergers. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA
Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science
Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.