The All-Sky Catalog of Isolated Galaxies selected from 2MASS

TL;DR

This paper presents a new all-sky catalog of 3227 isolated galaxies identified from the 2MASS survey, providing a valuable resource for studying galaxy evolution in low-density environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel catalog of isolated galaxies selected from 2MASS data using an automatic and visual verification process, expanding the sample of such galaxies.

Findings

Catalog contains 3227 isolated galaxies from 2MASS data.

Identifies 2493 galaxies as very isolated, suitable as a reference sample.

Provides a new dataset for studying environmental effects on galaxy evolution.

Abstract

We undertook searches for isolated galaxies based on automatic selection of infrared sources from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) followed by a visual inspection of their surrounding. Using a modified criterion by Karachentseva (1973), we compiled a catalog of 3227 isolated galaxies (2MIG) containing 6% of 2MASS Extended Sources (2MASX) brighter than $K_s = 12^m$ with angular diameters $a_K \geq 30\arcsec$. The most isolated 2493 galaxies among them enter in the 2MASS Very Isolated Galaxy Catalog, 2MVIG. Being situated in the regions of extremely low mass density, the 2MVIG galaxies can serve as a reference sample for investigation the influence of environment on structure and evolution of galaxies.