Deep surface photometry and mass assembly history in low density environments

The VST Early-type Galaxies survey (VEGAS) is a deep and large-scale multi-band imaging survey which allow us to study the galaxy outskirts out to the intragroup and intracluster regions, and down to faint surface brightness levels mu_g ~ 28-30 mag/arcsec^2. It is well established that mergers and accretions leave observational signatures as tidal tails, shells, loops, streams, and plums which lie in the galaxy outskirts and at low surface brightness levels. The morphology and properties of these features hold hints to the nature of the events which have created them. As a part of VEGAS, we present the preliminary results comparing the first three analyzed low density environments: the NGC 5018 group, the NGC 1533 triplet and the IC 1459 group. We show the low surface brightness features and their relation with the environment, the HI distribution, and the Intragroup Light (IGL) estimation. At the end we present a correlation between the IGL component and the HI mass as a possible tracer of the dynamical stage of the galaxy groups