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Abstract:

We demonstrate that the comparison of Tully-Fisher relations (TFRs) derived from global H-i linewidths to TFRs derived from the circular-velocity profiles of dynamical models (or stellar kinematic observations corrected for asymmetric drift) is vulnerable to systematic and uncertain biases introduced by the different measures of rotation used. We therefore argue that to constrain the relative locations of the TFRs of spiral and S0 galaxies, the same tracer and measure must be used for both samples. Using detailed near-infrared imaging and the circular velocities of axisymmetric Jeans models of 14 nearby edge-on Sa-Sb spirals and 14 nearby edge-on S0s drawn from a range of environments, we find that S0s lie on a TFR with the same slope as the spirals, but are on average 0.53 ± 0.15-mag fainter at KS band at a given rotational velocity. This is a significantly smaller offset than that measured in earlier studies of the S0 TFR, which we attribute to our elimination of the bias associated with using different rotation measures and our use of earlier-type spirals as a reference. Since our measurement of the offset avoids systematic biases, it should be preferred to previous estimates. A spiral stellar population in which star formation is truncated would take ≈1-Gyr to fade by 0.53-mag at KS band. If S0s are the products of a simple truncation of star formation in spirals, then this finding is difficult to reconcile with the observed evolution of the spiral/S0 fraction with redshift. Recent star formation could explain the observed lack of fading in S0s, but the offset of the S0 TFR persists as a function of both stellar and dynamical mass. We show that the offset of the S0 TFR could therefore be explained by a systematic difference between the total mass distributions of S0s and spirals, in the sense that S0s need to be smaller or more concentrated than spirals. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.