Substructures and galaxy orientations in clusters II. Cluster Abell 14

¹ Institute for Communication and Structure Research, G.-Hauptmann-Str. 16, 14558 Bergholz–Rehbrücke, Germany
² Jagellonian University, Astronomical Observatory, ul. Orla 171, 30-244 Krakow, Poland
³ Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ, Scotland, UK

Corresponding author: W. Godłowski, godlows@oa.uj.edu.pl

Received: 22 December 2000
Accepted: 27 February 2003

Abstract

We present an investigation of the Abell 14 galaxy cluster, including a discussion of subclustering, some aspects concerning its evolution, as well as an analysis of galaxy orientations in the cluster region. We confirm the previous results showing evidence for subclustering in this cluster obtained from studies of galaxy distributions. In this light, our aim has been to examine non-random effects in the galaxy orientations in rich clusters, with particular regard to the presence of subclustering. Our results do provide evidence for non-random alignment of the galaxies in Abell 14 and confirm the presence of subclustering within this cluster. However, the direction of the alignment is different from that (we) found for Abell 754 (Godłowski et al. 1998). We continue our investigations by studying other clusters in a similar manner. The results will be published in the next paper.