We use the Gemini Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph ( NIFS ) to map the stellar kinematics of the inner few hundred parsecs of a sample of 16 nearby Seyfert galaxies , at a spatial resolution of tens of parsecs and spectral resolution of 40 km s ^ { -1 } .
We find that the line-of-sight ( LOS ) velocity fields for most galaxies are well reproduced by rotating disk models .
The kinematic position angle ( PA ) derived for the LOS velocity field is consistent with the large scale photometric PA .
The residual velocities are correlated with the hard X-ray luminosity , suggesting that more luminous AGN have a larger impact in the surrounding stellar dynamics .
The central velocity dispersion values are usually higher than the rotation velocity amplitude , what we attribute to the strong contribution of bulge kinematics in these inner regions .
For 50 % of the galaxies , we find an inverse correlation between the velocities and the h _ { 3 } Gauss-Hermitte moment , implying red wings in the blueshifted side and blue wings in the redshifted side of the velocity field , attributed to the movement of the bulge stars lagging the rotation .
Two of the 16 galaxies ( NGC 5899 and Mrk 1066 ) show an S-shape zero velocity line , attributed to the gravitational potential of a nuclear bar .
Velocity dispersion ( \sigma ) maps show rings of low- \sigma values ( \sim 50 - 80 km s ^ { -1 } ) for 4 objects and “ patches ” of low- \sigma for 6 galaxies at 150–250 pc from the nucleus , attributed to young/ intermediate age stellar populations .