Open AccessAngular distribution of satellite galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4
Author(s) -
Azzaro Marco,
Patiri Santiago G.,
Prada Francisco,
Zentner Andrew R.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society: letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.067
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1745-3933
pISSN - 1745-3925
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2007.00282.x
Subject(s) - sky , anisotropy , galaxy , isotropy , astrophysics , satellite , satellite galaxy , physics , radius , astronomy , galaxy formation and evolution , optics , computer science , computer security
ABSTRACT We explore the angular distribution of two samples of satellite galaxies orbiting isolated hosts extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4. We find a clear alignment of the satellites along the major axis of their hosts when restricting the analysis to red‐coloured hosts. The anisotropy is most pronounced for red satellites of red hosts. We find that the distribution of the satellites about blue, isolated hosts is consistent with isotropy. We show that under the assumption that the true, underlying distribution of satellites of blue hosts exhibits the same anisotropy as the satellites of red hosts, the sample of blue hosts is too small to measure this anisotropy at a statistically significant level. The anisotropy that we detect for satellites about red hosts is independent of the projected radius. In particular, it is evident at large projected distances from the hosts (300 < r p < 500 kpc) .