Comments on individual galaxies

Over our sample the J-band surface brightness profiles showed more distinct and smoother thick disk components than the K'-band profiles, which shows that the J-band data are deeper compared to the K'-band data. The very late-type low-mass galaxies FGC 2339 and IC 5249 could not be fitted with the 2D Two Disk model and are discussed in Section 4.5.

IC 3322A: The J-band profile of the galaxy shows a weak but distinct thick disk component, which shows in the low values for $\mu_{n-k}$, 3.4 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, and $f_z$, 3.4. The K'-band results show an extremely high $\mu_{n-k}$, 5.6 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, and a much flatter thick disk with a $f_z$ of 7.0. However, its profile shows the thick disk much less distinct and the $\chi^{2}_{\nu,1}/\chi^{2}_{\nu,2}$ is below the break point, which makes the quality of the fit not good. An attempt to use larger $f_b$ values did not improve the quality of the profile. The high $f_z$ value, compared to the low value of the J-band, does hint that $\mu_{n-k}$ is too large.
NGC 1886: This is the only case in which no clear hint of a thick disk or an extended vertical structure is seen in either of the bands, although the J-band results seem to hint at some slight flatter structure at the high $z$. In the K'-band profile nothing can be seen. The $\chi^{2}_{\nu,1}/\chi^{2}_{\nu,2}$ ratios clearly support this. However, considering the other results, which show $\mu_{n-k}$ larger than 5 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ and $f_z$ values of only 3.4, the thick disk component can be too faint or too steep to be seen in this profile and thus cannot be excluded to be still possibly existing. Deeper surface photometry would solve the unanswered result for this galaxy as it is the only one from our sample not showing a thick disk component.
NGC 2424: A strong thick disk component can be seen in the profiles. $\mu_{n-k}$ is with 4.5 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ moderate, while the $f_z$ with 6.9 is high, but not too extreme.
NGC 2591: $\mu_{n-k}$ shows to be quite high with 5.2 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, while $f_z$ remains moderate compared to the other results with 5.0. $f_h$ however is quite high with 3.4 and seems out of place, but if one couples this to the high $\mu_{n-k}$, this can be seen as overrated by the fitting effect we described earlier. The thick disk component is somewhat weak but still distinct enough to be recognized.
NGC 4179: The only early-type galaxy, which was used to compare it to previous fit results by Pohlen et. al. (2004). A clear thick disk component is seen and the fit, after conversion, matches their results decently, with $\mu_n$ = 20.2 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, $\mu_n$ = 22.9 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, $\mu_{n-k}$ = 2.7 mag arcsec$^{-2}$, $f_z$ = 3.1 and $f_h$ = 2.0. Our results show a fainter and flatter thick disk ($\mu_{n-k}$ = 3.8 mag arcsec$^{-2}$) with also a quite higher scalelength ratio ($f_h$ = 3.23). If this is a case where a high $f_h$ is coupled to a high $\mu_{n-k}$ this could explain the difference with these numbers to the results of Pohlen et al. (2004).
NGC 5290: In this galaxy the thick disk is shown to be more extended, and more shallow, with a very large scaleheight ratio of 7.2 in the J-band and 7.7 in the K'-band, higher than any previous research results. $\mu_{n-k}$ are 4.6 and 5.1 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ respectively. It could be that this is an extreme case, but it can also mean that thick disks can be so shallow that they are very hard to detect. The thick disk structure already shows up strongly above $\mu_\textrm{\scriptsize crit}$, supporting that thick disks can be so faint and flat compared to thin disk that they are hard to distinguish from the background if the resolution doesn't go deep enough. For both bands we could make a fit with the lowest starting value of $f_b$, showing a distinct and smooth thick disk component in both bands. The $\chi^{2}_{\nu,1}/\chi^{2}_{\nu,2}$ values are extremely high, dissolving any remaining doubt.
NGC 5981: This galaxy showed to be similar to IC 3322A in its parameter results with a relatively low $\mu_{n-k}$ of 3.9 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ and a $f_z$ of 3.3. The thick disk component is also weak and less distinct but still quite visible, while the $\chi^{2}_{\nu,1}/\chi^{2}_{\nu,2}$ value is above the break point.
UGC 4277: The profiles of this galaxy showed quite a lot of bumps in the profiles that could not be removed easily by making $f_b$ larger. For the K'-band profile we had to resort to a $f_b$ of 1.12 to be able to fit the distinct thick disk component we saw in both profiles. Too large bins caused the profile the flatten more, especially in the outer part where the thick disk component was already not that steep. The bins also lose some of the thick disk datapoints because the larger bins take more background noise into the average. This can make the average intensity drop if they are all very low. The J-band results show a quite flat thick disk, with a $f_z$ of 6.5, but $f_h$ is unusually low with 0.6. As a flat thick disk can be coupled with being much fainter than the thin disk, this low number can also explain the relatively low value for $\mu_{n-k}$ at 3.9 mag arcsec$^{-2}$. During the fitting the coupling between $\mu_{n-k}$ and $f_h$ was clearly noted, so these low values could be a systematic effect. As the K'-band $f_z$ is quite high with 7.5, and we had to resort to large bins we consider the J-band results to represent the thick disk parameters better.