Structural Parameters of Stellar Disks from 2MASS Images of Edge-on Galaxies

We present results of an analysis of the J, H, and Ks 2MASS images of 139 spiral edge-on galaxies selected from the Revised Flat Galaxies Catalog. The basic structural parameters scalelength (h), scaleheight (z0), and central surface brightness of the stellar disks (μ0) are determined for all selected galaxies in the NIR bands. The mean relative ratios of the scaleheights of the thin stellar disks in the J:H:Ks bands are 1.16:1.08:1.00, respectively. Comparing the scaleheights obtained from the NIR bands for the same objects, we estimate the scaleheights of the thin stellar disks corrected for the internal extinction. We find that the extinction-corrected scaleheight 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 z0/h correlates with their face-on central surface brightnesses obtained from the 2MASS images. We also find that the scaleheight of the stellar disks shows no systematic growth with radius in most of our galaxies. Subject headings: galaxies: structure, galaxies: spiral, galaxies: photometry, galaxies: halos, infrared: galaxies