Radial profile of the polarized surface brightness. Top: along the major axis in NE (right half) and in SW (left half) direction for H (red) and K_s band (blue). Bottom: along the minor axis in NW (right half) and in SE (left half) direction, namely the far and near disk side, respectively. The grey box indicates the region that our data resolved for the first time. In all profiles (except the H band NW minor axis), the depletion inside this region is evident. Errors are 3σ noise calculated from the P_∥ images (see Sect. 2) and do not include systematic uncertainties in the photometric calibration.