STRUCTURAL PARAMETERS OF STELLAR DISKS FROM TWO MICRON ALL SKY SURVEY IMAGES OF EDGE-ON GALAXIES

We present results of an analysis of the J, H, and K-s Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) images of 139 spiral edge-on galaxies selected from the Revised Flat Galaxies Catalog. The basic structural parameters scale length (h), scale height (z(0)), and central surface brightness of the stellar disks (mu(0)) are determined for all selected galaxies in the near-infrared (NIR) bands. The mean relative ratios of the scale heights of the thin stellar disks in the J: H: K-s bands are 1.16:1.08:1.00, respectively. Comparing the scale heights obtained from the NIR bands for the same objects, we estimate the scale heights of the thin stellar disks corrected for the internal extinction. We find that the extinction-corrected scale height is, on average, 11% smaller than that in the K band. Using the extinction-corrected structural parameters, we find that the dark-to-luminous mass ratio is, on average, 1.3 for the galaxies in our sample within the framework of a simplified galactic model. The relative thicknesses of the stellar disks z(0)/h correlates with their face-on central surface brightnesses obtained from the 2MASS images. We also find that the scale height of the stellar disks shows no systematic growth with radius in most of our galaxies.