MaNGA provides the opportunity to make precise spatially resolved measurements of the IMF slope in galaxies owing to its unique combination of spatial resolution , wavelength coverage and sample size .
We derive radial gradients in age , element abundances and IMF slope analysing optical and near-infrared absorption features from stacked spectra out to the half-light radius of 366 early-type galaxies with masses 9.9 - 10.8 \log M / M _ { \odot } .
We find flat gradients in age and [ \alpha /Fe ] ratio , as well as negative gradients in metallicity , consistent with the literature .
We further derive significant negative gradients in the [ Na/Fe ] ratio with galaxy centres being well enhanced in Na abundance by up to 0.5 dex .
Finally , we find a gradient in IMF slope with a bottom-heavy IMF in the centre ( typical mass excess factor of 1.5 ) and a Milky Way-type IMF at the half-light radius .
This pattern is mass-dependent with the lowest mass galaxies in our sample featuring only a shallow gradient around a Milky Way IMF .
Our results imply the local IMF- \sigma relation within galaxies to be even steeper than the global relation and hint towards the local metallicity being the dominating factor behind the IMF variations .
We also employ different stellar population models in our analysis and show that a radial IMF gradient is found independently of the stellar population model used .
A similar analysis of the Wing-Ford band provides inconsistent results and further evidence of the difficulty in measuring and modelling this particular feature .