The Inner Scale Length of Spiral Galaxy Rotation Curves

We use the tapering effect of Hα/[N II] rotation curves of spiral galaxies first noted by Goad & Roberts 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 modeling of the effect implies substantial opacity of the central parts of disks at a wavelength of 0.66 μm. 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 of I = 2.7 h M☉/L☉, I, within the inner 1.7 h-1 kpc of disks.