SCALING ANALYSIS OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF GALAXIES IN THE CFA CATALOG

A detailed analysis of the CfA1 catalog of galaxies by means of the multifractal or scaling formalism is presented in this paper. The fair sample hypothesis, the depth effect, and the problems of the luminosity and morphological segregation are extensively studied in volumes which differ by a factor of about 8 in size and of about 14 in number density. The results of our calculation suggest that the CfA1 catalog is not a fair sample drawn from a hypothetical universal galaxy distribution. Moreover, no depth effect has been found. Two kinds of (slight) luminosity segregation could have been detected: one, due to a peculiar velocity contamination of bright galaxies which trace denser regions, and other, for field galaxies, which could be a manifestation of biasing. The morphological segregation is present not only in the cores of clusters, but also at larger scales and in the moderate density regions. Both the luminosity and morphological segregations are independent effects.