Color similarity study among small galaxy groups members

TL;DR

This study uses color similarity measures to identify discordant galaxies in small galaxy groups, improving group membership determination based on SDSS data.

Contribution

Introduces a color similarity-based method for detecting discordant galaxies in small groups, enhancing group membership accuracy.

Findings

73.4% of quintets have color-similar galaxies

Interloper galaxies tend to be less luminous

Color similarity improves group membership identification

Abstract

We applied a membership test based on the color similarity of group members to detect the discordant galaxies in small groups (quintets) that had been determined by the Friends-of-Friends (FoF) algorithm. Our method depends on the similarity of the color indices (u-g) and (g-r) of the group members. The chosen sample of quintets was extracted from "Flux- and volume-limited groups for SDSS galaxies" catalog which is a spectroscopic sample of galaxies originally taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - Data Release 10 (SDSS-DR10). The sample included 282 quintets with a total number of 1410 galaxies. The similarity measure used in this study is the Euclidean distance. The calculations showed that 73.4% of the group samples (207 out of 282 quintet groups) have galaxies with similar colors (u-g) and (g-r). Each of the remainder groups (75 systems) has an interloper galaxy with different colors than the other members, and hence they became quadrants. We found that group members tend to be more luminous than outliers. We conclude that using the similarities in the color indices between group members gives better identification of group membership.