Constraints on the angular distribution of satellite galaxies about spiral hosts |
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| Authors: | Jason H Steffen Octavio Valenzuela |
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| Institution: | Fermilab Centre for Particle Astrophysics, PO Box 500 MS 127, Batavia, IL 60510, USA;Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, C.P. 04510, México, D.F., México |
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| Abstract: | We present, using a novel technique, a study of the angular distribution of satellite galaxies around a sample of isolated, blue host galaxies selected from the sixth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. As a complement to previous studies, we subdivide the sample of galaxies into bins of differing inclination and use the systematic differences that would exist between the different bins as the basis for our approach. We parametrize the cumulative distribution function of satellite galaxies and apply a maximum likelihood, Monte Carlo technique to determine allowable distributions, which we show as an exclusion plot. We find that the allowed distributions of the satellites of spiral hosts are very nearly isotropic. We outline our formalism and our analysis and discuss how this technique may be refined for future studies and future surveys. |
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| Keywords: | galaxies: haloes galaxies: structure |
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