Investigation of the number densities of interacting elliptical galaxies

In this thesis, 1950 merging elliptical galaxy pairs have been identified among 194735 (i < 22) elliptical galaxies in the CFHTLS-W1 field. These galaxies constitute 1% of all elliptical galaxies in the same field. Dependence of the fraction of merging elliptical galaxies to redshift has been investigated. It has been found that the fraction of those galaxies increases towards smaller redshifts (z ~ 0). A power-law model has been applied in order to obtain fraction of merging elliptical galaxies as a function of redshift reveals f_m=3.80 ± 0.20 〖(1+z)〗^(-1.55 ±0.30). In general, fraction of merging galaxies decreases towards z ~ 0. The increase in the fraction of merging elliptical galaxies implies that spiral galaxies are transformed into ellipticals which in turn increase the elliptical galaxy population. Identified merging elliptical galaxies are classified as major and minor based on their luminosity. 1434 major and 516 minor mergers have been found. Both for the whole sample and for individual merger types (e.g. major, minor), the obtained (g-r) color distribution for the merging components are similar.