The entire-sky catalog of isolated galaxies selected from 2MASS

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive all-sky catalog of 2MASS-selected isolated galaxies, providing a valuable resource for studying galaxy evolution and dark matter, based on systematic automated and visual identification methods.

Contribution

It presents the first entire-sky catalog of isolated galaxies from 2MASS, using automated and visual methods based on Karachentseva's criteria, with potential applications in galaxy evolution and dark matter research.

Findings

Catalog contains 2100 isolated galaxies, 4% of the sample brighter than K=12m.

Isolated galaxies likely have no major perturbations in the last billion years.

The catalog can be used to explore dark galaxy populations within z=0.02.

Abstract

We present a first entire-sky catalog of isolated galaxies obtained via systematic automated and visual inspections of extended sources from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS). Based on the Karachentseva's (1973) isolation criteria, we have extracted a sample of 2100 2MIG galaxies consisting a 4% fraction among galaxies brighter than K = 12m. Being the objects with probably no major perturbations in some last billion years, the 2MIG galaxies may be considered as a reference sample to study environment effects in galaxy structure and evolution. The 2MIG catalog may also be useful to explore the existence of dark galaxy population within a volume of z=0.02.