Near-Infrared Surface Photometry and Morphology in Virgo Cluster Spiral Galaxy Nuclear Regions

This paper presents very high spatial resolution (seeing 0.75 arcsec FWHM) K band surface photometry of 15 Virgo cluster spiral galaxy nuclear regions (radii < 1 kpc). It presents B and J band CCD images of 13 of these galaxies. The goals of the study were: (1) to begin to establish a K band baseline of normal spiral galaxy nuclear regions against which peculiar galaxies may be compared, (2) to provide better constraints on N-body models, and (3) to complement near-infrared studies of large scale structure in spiral galaxies with very high resolution imaging of the important nuclear regions. The principal findings are: (1) between 1/4 and 1/3 of these nuclear regions show K band evidence of triaxiality, (2) approximately 1/2 of these galaxies have axisymmetric nuclear regions, and (3) NGC 4321 has a bar that is not detectable in the optical images.