Constraints on the angular distribution of satellite galaxies about spiral hosts

Abstract

We present, using a novel technique, a study of the angular distribution of satellite galaxies around a sample of isolated, blue host galaxies selected from the sixth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. As a complement to previous studies we subdivide the sample of galaxies into bins of differing inclination and use the systematic differences that would exist between the different bins as the basis for our approach. We parameterize the cumulative distribution function of satellite galaxies and apply a maximum likelihood, Monte-Carlo technique to determine allowable distributions, which we show as an exclusion plot. We find that the allowed distributions of the satellites of spiral hosts are very nearly isotropic. We outline our formalism and our analysis and discuss how this technique may be refined for future studies and future surveys.