We present a detailed analysis of the properties of warps and tidally-triggered perturbations perpendicular to the plane of 47 interacting/merging edge-on spiral galaxies .
The derived parameters are compared with those obtained for a sample of 61 non-interacting edge-on spirals .
The entire optical ( R -band ) sample used for this study was presented in two previous papers .
We find that the scale height of disks in the interacting/merging sample is characterized by perturbations on both large ( \simeq disk cut-off radius ) and short ( \simeq \mbox { $z _ { 0 } $ } ) scales , with amplitudes of the order of 280 \hskip { 1.13811 pt } pc and 130 \hskip { 1.13811 pt } pc on average , respectively .
The size of these large ( short ) -scale instabilities corresponds to 14 % ( 6 % ) of the mean disk scale height .
This is a factor of 2 ( 1.5 ) larger than the value found for non-interacting galaxies .
A hallmark of nearly all tidally distorted disks is a scale height that increases systematically with radial distance .
The frequent occurrence and the significantly larger size of these gradients indicate that disk asymmetries on large scales are a common and persistent phenomenon , while local disturbances and bending instabilities decline on shorter timescales .
Nearly all ( 93 % ) of the interacting/merging and 45 % of the non-interacting galaxies studied are noticeably warped .
Warps of interacting/merging galaxies are \approx 2.5 times larger on average than those observed in the non-interacting sample , with sizes of the order of 340 \hskip { 1.13811 pt } pc and 140 \hskip { 1.13811 pt } pc , respectively .
This indicates that tidal distortions do considerably contribute to the formation and size of warps .
However , they can not entirely explain the frequent occurrence of warped disks .