Morphology and luminosity segregation of galaxies in nearby loose groups

Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università degli Studi di Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy e-mail: [girardi,rigoni,mardiros,mezzetti]@ts.astro.it

Corresponding author: M. Girardi, girardi@ts.astro.it

Received: 13 March 2003
Accepted: 19 May 2003

Abstract

We study morphology and luminosity segregation of galaxies in loose groups. We analyze the two catalogs of groups identified in the Nearby Optical Galaxy (NOG) sample, by means of hierarchical and percolation “friends-of-friends” methods (HG and PG catalogs, respectively). In the first part of our analysis we consider 387 and 436 groups of HG and PG and compare morphology- (luminosity-) weighted to unweighted group properties: velocity dispersion, mean pairwise distance, and mean groupcentric distance of member galaxies. The second part of our analysis is based on two ensemble systems, one for each catalog, built by suitably combining together galaxies of all groups (1584 and 1882 galaxies for HG and PG groups). We find that earlier-type (brighter) galaxies are more clustered and lie closer to the group centers, both in position and in velocity, than later-type (fainter) galaxies. Spatial segregations are stronger than kinematical segregations. These effects are generally detected at the $\mathrel{\hbox{\rlap{\hbox{\lower4pt\hbox{~}}}\hbox{$>$}}}$3-sigma level. Luminosity segregation is shown to be independent of morphology segregation. Our main conclusions are strengthened by the detection of segregation in both hierarchical and percolation catalogs. Our results agree with a continuum of segregation properties of galaxies in systems, from low-mass groups to massive clusters.