Bibcode
Delgado-Donate, E. J.; Muñoz-Tuñón, C.; Deeg, H. J.; Iglesias-Páramo, J.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.402, p.921-928 (2003)
Advertised on:
5
2003
Journal
Citations
11
Refereed citations
10
Description
We present results from a survey of dwarf galaxy candidates in the
vicinity of strongly interacting galaxies. The goal of the survey was a
test of the hypothesis that massive condensations of stars and HI in
tidal tails of large interacting galaxies may be a significant source of
independent, self-gravitating dwarf galaxies. These so called tidal
dwarf galaxies (TDG) can be expected to resemble the blue luminous knots
found in tidal tails, but also might appear as redder, evolved systems
if formed much before they are being observed. For the present study, a
homogeneous subsample of 6 fields was selected from the catalog of
extended objects in fields around 15 strongly interacting galaxies by
Deeg et al. (cite{Deeg98}). Criteria for the subsample were: similar
redshifts of the central interacting galaxies, and photometric
completeness of the extended objects in V and R. The number density of
these TDG candidates was compared with expected background galaxy
densities. Within the statistical errors, background galaxies account
for most, if not all of the extended objects. There is no evidence for a
substantial locally formed dwarf galaxy population. Thus, we conclude
that field galaxy-galaxy interactions are likely to result in the
formation of only a few long-lived TDG.