2011•The Astrophysical JournalOpen access
THE THICK DISK IN THE GALAXY NGC 4244 FROM S4G IMAGING
S. Comerón, Johan H. Knapen, Kartik Sheth, Michael W. Regan, J. L. Hinz, Armando Gil de Paz, Karín Menéndez‐Delmestre, Juan-Carlos Muñoz-Mateos, Mark Seibert, Taehyun Kim, E. Athanassoula, Albert Bosma, R. Buta, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Luis C. Ho, Benne Willem Holwerda, E. Laurikainen, H. Salo, Eva Schinnerer
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Abstract
If thick disks are ubiquitous and a natural product of disk galaxy formation and/or evolution processes, all \nundisturbed galaxies that have evolved during a significant fraction of a Hubble time should have a thick disk. The \nlate-type spiral galaxy NGC 4244 has been reported as the only nearby edge-on galaxy without a confirmed thick \ndisk. Using data from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S^4G) we have identified signs of two disk \ncomponents in this galaxy. The asymmetries between the light profiles on both sides of the mid-plane of NGC 4244 \ncan be explained by a combination of the galaxy not being perfectly edge-on and a certain degree of opacity of \nthe thin disk. We argue that the subtlety of the thick disk is a consequence of either a limited secular evolution in \nNGC 4244, a small fraction of stellar material in the fragments which built the galaxy, or a high amount of gaseous \naccretion after the formation of the galaxy.
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