Truncated stellar discs in the near infrared

II. Statistical properties and interpretation

¹ Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, Spain e-mail: estrella@ugr.es
² Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán, Almería, Spain
³ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38200 La Laguna, Spain
⁴ Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

Received: 26 April 2005
Accepted: 20 December 2005

Abstract

The results obtained in Paper I are used to study possible relationships between the truncation radius of stellar discs in the NIR and structural parameters of the galaxies. The NIR truncation radius is larger for brighter galaxies, being proportional to  with , and with V_m being the asymptotic rotation velocity at large radii (when the rotation curve becomes flat), and is lower for higher wavelengths. When it is normalized to the scalelength, the truncation is an increasing function of the central surface brightness and is lower for late type galaxies, although these correlations are weaker. These relations are in agreement with the scenario of magnetically driven truncations.