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Nuclear Stellar Disks (NSDs), of a few tens to hundreds of parsec across, area common and yet poorly studied feature of early-type galaxies. Still, suchsmall disks represent a powerful tool to constrain the assembling history ofgalaxies, since they can be used to trace to the epoch when galaxiesexperienced their last major merger event. By studying the fraction and stellarage of NSDs it is thus possible to test the predictions for the assemblyhistory of early-type galaxies according the current hierarchical paradigm forgalaxy formation. In this paper we have produced the most comprehensive censusof NSDs in nearby early-type galaxies by searching for such disks in objectswithin 100 Mpc and by using archival images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Wefound that NSDs are present in approximately 20% of early-type galaxies, andthat the fraction of galaxies with NSDs does not depend on their Hubble typenor on their galactic environment, whereas the incidence of NSDs appears todecline in the most massive systems. Furthermore, we have separated the lightcontribution of twelve such disks from that of their surrounding stellar bulgein order to extract their physical properties. This doubles the number ofdecomposed NSDs and although the derived values for their central surfacebrightness and scale-length are consistent with previous studies they also givea hint of possible different characteristics due to different formationscenario between nuclear disks and other kinds of large galactic disks.

A Census of Nuclear Stellar Disks in Early-type Galaxies