On the characteristics of tidal structures of interacting galaxies

We present the results of our analysis of the geometrical tidal tail characteristics for nearby and distant interacting galaxies. The sample includes more than two hundred nearby galaxies and about seven hundred distant ones. The distant galaxies have been selected in several deep fields of the Hubble Space Telescope (HDF-N, HDF-S, HUDF, GOODS, GEMS) and they are at mean redshift 〈z〉 = 0.65. We analyze the distributions of lengths and thicknesses for the tidal structures and show that the tails in distant galaxies appear shorter than those in nearby ones. This effect can be partly attributed to observational selection, but, on the other hand, it may result from the general evolution of the sizes of spiral galaxies with z. The positions of interacting galaxies on the galaxy luminosity (L)-tidal tail length (l) plane are shown to be explained by a simple geometrical model, with the upper envelope of the observed distribution being \(l \propto \sqrt L\). We have solved the problem on the relationship between the observed distribution of tail flatting and the tail length in angular measure by assuming the tidal tails to be arcs of circumferences visible at arbitrary angles to the line of sight. We conclude that the angular length of the tidal tails visually distinguished in nearby and distant galaxies, on average, exceeds 180°.