A Catalog of Faint Interacting Galaxies in Pairs and Groups

Abstract

We have carried out an extensive survey of faint galaxies in order to examine the rise in the merger rate with redshift and to study the statistical relations between close interacting galaxies and the field galaxy population. In this paper we present the catalogs of faint pairs and groups of galaxies of 46 equatorial fields taken with the CTIO 4m prime focus. The data set contains 73,988 galaxies covering a total area of 2.23~deg$^{2}$. We have found 1751 isolated pairs and 30 groups of galaxies within $19<m_{R}<22$ and $2''<\theta<6''$ in this area. Our results show clearly an increase in pairs and groups of galaxies in comparison to a randomly generated catalog.