2MTF.: I.: The Tully-Fisher relation in the two micron all sky survey J, H, and K bands

The Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) Tully-Fisher Survey (2MTF) aims to measure Tully-Fisher (TF) distances to all bright inclined spirals in the 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS). Essential to this project is a universal calibration of the TF relation in the 2MASS J (1.2 mu m), H (1.6 mu m), and K (2.2 mu m) bands. We present the first bias-corrected or universal TF template in these bands. We find that the slope of the TF relation becomes steeper as the wavelength increases being close to L proportional to upsilon(4) in the K band and L proportional to upsilon(3.6) in the J and H bands. We also investigate the dependence on galaxy morphology showing that in all three bands the relation is steeper for later-type spirals which also have a dimmer TF zero point than earlier-type spirals. We correct the final relation to that for Sc galaxies. Finally we study the scatter from the TF relation fitting for a width-dependent intrinsic scatter which is not found to vary significantly with wavelength.