Talk Title: Halos around edge-on disk galaxies in the SDSS
Abstract: I will present the results of the statistical analysis of the halo emission of a sample of 1047 edge-on disk galaxies imaged in five bands by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Stacking the homogeneously rescaled images of the galaxies, we have obtained photometric measurements as deep as $\mu_r \sim 31$ mag/arcsec$^2$. The results strongly support the almost ubiquitous presence of stellar halos around disk galaxies, whose spatial distribution is well described by a power-law $\rho \propto r^{-3}$, in a moderately flattened spheroidal ($c/a \sim 0.6$). The colour estimates in g-r and r-i, although uncertain, give clear indication for extremely red stellar populations, hinting at old ages and non-negligible metal enrichment. These results support the idea of halos being assembled via merging of satellite spheroidal galaxies.
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