Galaxy Zoo: the fraction of merging galaxies in the SDSS and their morphologies

被引：165

作者：

Darg, D. W. ^{[1
]}

Kaviraj, S. ^{[1
,2
]}

Lintott, C. J. ^{[1
]}

Schawinski, K. ^{[3
,4
]}

Sarzi, M. ^{[5
]}

Bamford, S. ^{[6
]}

Silk, J. ^{[1
]}

Proctor, R. ^{[7
]}

Andreescu, D. ^{[8
]}

Murray, P. ^{[9
]}

Nichol, R. C. ^{[10
]}

Raddick, M. J. ^{[11
]}

Slosar, A. ^{[12
,13
]}

Szalay, A. S. ^{[11
]}

Thomas, D. ^{[10
]}

Vandenberg, J. ^{[11
]}

机构：

[1] Univ Oxford, Dept Phys, Oxford OX1 3RH, England

[2] Univ Coll London, Mullard Space Sci Lab, Dorking RH5 6NT, Surrey, England

[3] Yale Univ, Dept Phys, New Haven, CT 06511 USA

[4] Yale Univ, Yale Ctr Astron & Astrophys, New Haven, CT 06520 USA

[5] Univ Hertfordshire, Ctr Astrophys Res, Hatfield AL10 9AB, Herts, England

[6] Univ Nottingham, Ctr Astron & Particle Theory, Nottingham NG7 2RD, England

[7] Waveney Consulting, Waveney Web Serv, Wimborne BH21 3QY, Dorset, England

[8] LinkLab, Bronx, NY 10471 USA

[9] Fingerprint Digital Media, Newtownards BT23 7GY, Co Down, North Ireland

[10] Univ Portsmouth, Inst Cosmol & Gravitat, Portsmouth PO1 2EG, Hants, England

[11] Johns Hopkins Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA

[12] Univ Calif Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Berkeley Ctr Cosmol Phys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA

[13] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Phys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA

来源：

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY | 2010年 / 401卷 / 02期

关键词：

catalogues; galaxies: elliptical and lenticular; cD; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: general; galaxies: interactions; galaxies: spiral; DIGITAL-SKY-SURVEY; STAR-FORMATION RATES; EARLY DATA RELEASE; MERGER RATE; LUMINOSITY FUNCTION; SPIRAL GALAXIES; CLASSIFIED GALAXIES; MASSIVE GALAXIES; REDSHIFT SURVEY; FIELD GALAXIES;

D O I：

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15686.x

中图分类号：

P1 [天文学];

学科分类号：

0704 ;

摘要：

We present the largest, most homogeneous catalogue of merging galaxies in the nearby Universe obtained through the Galaxy Zoo project - an interface on the World Wide Web enabling large-scale morphological classification of galaxies through visual inspection of images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The method converts a set of visually inspected classifications for each galaxy into a single parameter (the 'weighted-merger-vote fraction,' f(m)) which describes our confidence that the system is part of an ongoing merger. We describe how f(m) is used to create a catalogue of 3003 visually selected pairs of merging galaxies from the SDSS in the redshift range 0.005 < z < 0.1. We use our merger sample and values of f(m) applied to the SDSS Main Galaxy Spectral sample to estimate that the fraction of volume-limited (M(r) < -20.55) major mergers (1/3 < M*(1)/M*(2) < 3) in the nearby Universe is 1-3 x C per cent, where C similar to 1.5 is a correction factor for spectroscopic incompleteness. Having visually classified the morphologies of the constituent galaxies in our mergers, we find that the spiral-to-elliptical ratio of galaxies in mergers is higher by a factor of similar to 2 relative to the global population. In a companion paper, we examine the internal properties of these merging galaxies and conclude that this high spiral-to-elliptical ratio in mergers is due to a longer time-scale over which mergers with spirals are detectable compared to mergers with ellipticals.

引用

页码：1043 / 1056

页数：14

共 68 条

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