Testing the AGN-starburst connection in Seyfert galaxies

We use the CO band at 2.3 mum to constrain the populations of young stars i n the central regions of Seyfert galaxies. We report new CO band spectrosco py of 46 Seyfert galaxies. In most cases, the observed CO indices appear di luted by the presence of a nonstellar component (most likely, warm dust sur rounding the active nucleus). We used JHKL aperture photometry to estimate the nonstellar contribution at 2.3 mum. We successfully corrected the CO ba nd for the dilution for 16 galaxies which were not dominated by the nonstel lar component. Comparing with CO indices measured in elliptical and purely starbursting galaxies, we find no evidence for strong starbursts in the maj ority of these galaxies.