The MAD View on the Outskirts of Disks

Abstract

We present the MUSE Atlas of Disks (MAD), a GTO program with the MUSE spectrograph on the ESO/VLT that is dedicated to the study of the optical spectroscopic properties of z = 0 disk galaxies on the star-forming ‘Main Sequence’ at < 100 pc physical resolution. MUSE pointings on the MAD galaxies extend out to ~ 2 disk scale lengths, enabling to investigate the bulge and inner disk properties of galaxies with different outer disks. Here we specifically compare, at constant stellar-mass, the stellar population properties of the inner components in disks with down-bending (Type II) and up-bending (Type III) outer profiles. We highlight similarities in the inner stellar properties of such different hosts, which point at a universal inside-out growth of disks, as well as differences which suggest an additional role of stellar migration and/or gas accretion in the growth of disk galaxies with an outer up-bending profile, as expected from theoretical models.