Estimating the Turn-around Radii of Six Isolated Galaxy Groups in the Local Universe

Abstract

Abstract Estimates of the turn-around radii of six isolated galaxy groups in the nearby universe are presented. From the Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we first select those isolated galaxy groups at redshifts z ≤ 0.05 in the mass range [0.3–1] whose nearest-neighbor groups are located at distances larger than 15 times their virial radii. Then, we search for a gravitationally interacting web-like structure around each isolated group, which appears as an inclined streak pattern in the anisotropic spatial distribution of the neighboring field galaxies. Out of 59 isolated groups, only seven are found to possess such web-like structures in their neighbor zones, but one of them turns out to be NGC 5353/4, whose turn-around radius was already measured in a previous work and was thus excluded from our analysis. Applying the Turn-around Radius Estimator algorithm devised by Lee et al. to the identified web-like structures of the remaining six target groups, we determine their turn-around radii and show that three out of the six targets have larger turn-around radii than the spherical bound limit predicted by Planck cosmology. We discuss possible sources of the apparent violations of the three groups, including the underestimated spherical bound limit due to the approximation of the turn-around mass by the virial mass.