The Influence of Merging Events on the Disk Component of Spiral Galaxies

We report on first results of a comprehensive study of interacting andmerging processes between spiral galaxies and small satellites to investigatethe effects of such events on the disk component of spirals. Analysis ofour newly obtained photometric data of about 125 edge-on galaxiesin optical and in NIR shows that there are considerable differencesbetween interacting and non-interacting galaxies concerning their absolutedisk scale parameters as well as their ratios (h/z ₀).In comparison with normal spirals, the average heating factor perpendicular tothe disk plane of mergers is about 1.5. The most striking feature of thedistributions of (h/z ₀) for both normal galaxies and mergers, is thetotal lack of typical flat disk axis ratios (i.e. that of late type ones)of (h/z ₀) > 6 for mergers. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.