232 research outputs found
Morphology Transformation in Pairs of Galaxies - The Local Sample
We present photometric analysis of a local sample of 14 isolated pairs of
galaxies. The photometric properties analyzed in the local pairs are: colors,
morphology, tidal effects and activity. We verify that close pairs have an
excess of early-type galaxies and many elliptical galaxies in this pairs are,
in fact, lenticular galaxies. Many late-pairs in our sample show strong tidal
damage and blue star formation regions. We conclude that pairs of different
morphologies may have passed through different evolution processes which
violently transformed their morphology. Pairs with at least one early-type
component may be descendents of groups of galaxies. However, late-type pairs
are probably long-lived showing clearly signs of interaction. Some of them
could be seen as an early stage of mergers. These photometric database will be
used for future comparison with more distant pairs in order to study galaxy
evolution.Comment: 14 pages LaTeX file, 7 gif figures, uses epsf.sty, l-aa.st
Discovery of a Galaxy Cluster in the Foreground of the Wide-Separation Quasar Pair UM425
We report the discovery of a cluster of galaxies in the field of UM425, a
pair of quasars separated by 6.5arcsec. Based on this finding, we revisit the
long-standing question of whether this quasar pair is a binary quasar or a
wide-separation lens. Previous work has shown that both quasars are at z=1.465
and show broad absorption lines. No evidence for a lensing galaxy has been
found between the quasars, but there were two hints of a foreground cluster:
diffuse X-ray emission observed with Chandra, and an excess of faint galaxies
observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Here we show, via VLT spectroscopy,
that there is a spike in the redshift histogram of galaxies at z=0.77. We
estimate the chance of finding a random velocity structure of such significance
to be about 5%, and thereby interpret the diffuse X-ray emission as originating
from z=0.77, rather than the quasar redshift. The mass of the cluster, as
estimated from either the velocity dispersion of the z=0.77 galaxies or the
X-ray luminosity of the diffuse emission, would be consistent with the
theoretical mass required for gravitational lensing. The positional offset
between the X-ray centroid and the expected location of the mass centroid is
about 40kpc, which is not too different from offsets observed in lower redshift
clusters. However, UM425 would be an unusual gravitational lens, by virtue of
the absence of a bright primary lensing galaxy. Unless the mass-to-light ratio
of the galaxy is at least 80 times larger than usual, the lensing hypothesis
requires that the galaxy group or cluster plays a uniquely important role in
producing the observed deflections.
Based on observations performed with the Very Large Telescope at the European
Southern Observatory, Paranal, Chile.Comment: 12 pages, accepted by ApJ 2005, May 1
Photometric observations of Southern Abell Cluster Redshifts Survey Clusters: Structure of galaxies in the inner region of clusters of galaxies
We analyze photometric properties of 1384 cluster galaxies as a function of
the normalized distance to cluster center. These galaxies were selected in the
central region ( 0.8) of 14 southern Abell clusters chosen from
the Southern Abell Cluster Redshifts Survey (SARS). For 507 of these galaxies
we also obtained their luminosity profiles. We have studied the
morphology-clustercentric distance relation on the basis of the shape parameter
of the S\'ersic's law. We also have analyzed the presence of a possible
segregation in magnitude for both, the galaxy total luminosity and that of
their components (i.e. the bulge and the disk).
Results show a marginal ( level) decrease of the total luminosity as
a function of normalized radius. However, when bulges are analyzed separately,
a significant luminosity segregation is found ( and for
galaxies in projection and member galaxies respectively). The fraction of
bulges brighter than is three times larger in the core of
clusters than in the outer region. Our analysis of the disk component suggests
that disks are, on average, less luminous in the cluster core than at
. In addition, we found that the magnitude-size relation as
a function of indicates (at level) that disks are smaller
and centrally brighter in the core of clusters. However, the Kormendy relation
(the bulge magnitude-size relation) appears to be independent of environment.Comment: To appear in the A
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