Abstract

We propose that some high relative velocity dumbbell galaxies are the centers of poor clusters or groups that are coming into a merging process. The components of these galaxies closely follow the incoming velocity of the merging groups, as revealed by the bimodality of the velocity histograms. Only mergers in a direction with a small angle to the line of sight can show the large velocity difference of the components and the velocity separation of incoming subgroups in the histograms. In this case the simple interpretation would be that the dumbbells components are also in an early phase of their merger, as they still keep the information of the incoming orbits, but analysis of a numerous sample is needed to prove this suggestion. © 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH&Co. KGaA, Weinheim.