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An IRAS High Resolution Image Restoration (HIRES) Atlas of All Interacting Galaxies in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample
The importance of far-infrared observations for our understanding ofextreme activity in interacting and merging galaxies has beenillustrated by many studies. Even though two decades have passed sinceits launch, the most complete all-sky survey to date from which far-IRselected galaxy samples can be chosen is still that of the InfraredAstronomical Satellite (IRAS). However, the spatial resolution of theIRAS all-sky survey is insufficient to resolve the emission fromindividual galaxies in most interacting galaxy pairs, and hence previousstudies of their far-IR properties have had to concentrate either onglobal system properties or on the properties of very widely separatedand weakly interacting pairs. Using the HIRES image reconstructiontechnique, it is possible to achieve a spatial resolution ranging from30" to 1.5m (depending on wavelength and detector coverage), whichis a fourfold improvement over the normal resolution of IRAS. This issufficient to resolve the far-IR emission from the individual galaxiesin many interacting systems detected by IRAS, which is very importantfor meaningful comparisons with single, isolated galaxies. We presenthigh-resolution 12, 25, 60, and 100 μm images of 106 interactinggalaxy systems contained in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (RBGS,Sanders et al.), a complete sample of all galaxies having a 60 μmflux density greater than 5.24 Jy. These systems were selected to haveat least two distinguishable galaxies separated by less than threeaverage galactic diameters, and thus we have excluded very widelyseparated systems and very advanced mergers. Additionally, some systemshave been included that are more than three galactic diameters apart,yet have separations less than 4' and are thus likely to suffer fromconfusion in the RBGS. The new complete survey has the same propertiesas the prototype survey of Surace et al. We find no increased tendencyfor infrared-bright galaxies to be associated with other infrared-brightgalaxies among the widely separated pairs studied here. We find smallenhancements in far-IR activity in multiple galaxy systems relative toRBGS noninteracting galaxies with the same blue luminosity distribution.We also find no differences in infrared activity (as measured byinfrared color and luminosity) between late- and early-type spiralgalaxies.
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