Colours of isolated galaxies selected from the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey

Abstract

The properties of isolated galaxies are mainly driven by intrinsic evolution and not by the external influence of their environments. Therefore the isolated galaxy sample may be considered as a reference sample to study different environmental effects. We made detailed comparisons between the near-infrared (2MASS) and optical (SDSS) colours of the 2MASS XSC selected sample of isolated 2MIG galaxies and with other objects from the wide range of denser environments (field, groups/clusters, triplets and pairs). We found that early type galaxies show similar (J-H)rest and (g-r)rest colours practically in all types of environments. Exception is for the massive early type galaxies located in compact pairs with high velocity difference (dV~180 km/s), which are significantly redder and brighter than isolated galaxies. We assume that these pairs are located in the centres of more populated groups and clusters. In general, galaxies in groups and pairs of spiral and late morphological types have redder near-infrared colours (J-H)rest than 2MIG isolated galaxies. The (g-r)rest colours of galaxies in groups and pairs with high velocity difference are also significantly redder than corresponding colours of 2MIG galaxies. On the contrary, the members of most compact pairs (dV~50 km/s, R~30 kpc) show the same (g-r)rest colour and even tend to be bluer than 2MIG galaxies. In summary, our results show that the colours of galaxies are strongly depend on the external factors.