A dynamical study of the frequency of merging galaxies

A study of the expected frequency of merging galaxies, involving disk-sphere systems, is conducted by use of the impulsive approximation. The results indicate that the expected frequencies of such galaxies is several orders of magnitude smaller than the observational value, if mergers taking place in a single crossing time or orbital period are considered. The expected frequency of elliptical pairs and spiral-elliptical pairs in merger is of the same order of magnitude, indicating that the two types of collisions are equally frequent. This aspect will be further investigated in subsequent papers of this series.