A photometric and morphological study of compact groups of galaxies and their environments

• Main Author: Kindl, Enrico
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2011
• Subjects: Galaxies > Clusters
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30722

This thesis examines properties of galaxies in and around compact groups. Astrometry, photometry and morphological classifications are derived from CCD images for all 463 galaxies in Hickson's sample of 100 compact groups. Some minor revisions to the membership of the original catalog are made. At high galactic latitude (b > 30°), the catalog is estimated to be 90% complete for groups with total B[formula omitted] magnitude 13.0 or less. 49% of all the catalogued galaxies, and 48% of first-ranked galaxies are spiral. No significant difference is found between the distribution of morphological types of first-ranked galaxies and all group galaxies. Morphological concordance occurs among galaxies within a group: more galaxies are the same type (spiral or nonspiral), than would be expected by chance. Galaxy morphological type correlates with group optical luminosity and, more strongly, with velocity dispersion, but not with galaxy space density. These results imply that the morphological types of galaxies in compact groups are strongly influenced by the environment, and that this influence occurs mostly at the time of galaxy formation. Fields surrounding 97 compact groups with known redshifts were examined on the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey prints. 3889 galaxies were identified within 1.125h⁻¹ Mpc of the centre of each group. Coordinates, magnitudes, diameters, and Hubble types are derived for these galaxies. 78% of the groups show no significant excess of field galaxies within 0.5h⁻¹ Mpc. This indicates that most compact groups are truly isolated. 59% of these field galaxies were classified as spiral, a higher fraction that for the group galaxies. This difference is more pronounced for groups which do show a significant field galaxy excess. These results indicate that most groups are dense dynamical entities. Monte-Carlo calculations indicate that 35% of galaxy quintets are predicted to contain a single discordant redshift due to the chance alignment of an unrelated field galaxy. This is in agreement with the observed number of four discordant quintets in 10. These results are consistent with the cosmological interpretation of galaxy redshifts. === Science, Faculty of === Physics and Astronomy, Department of === Graduate