Minor Galaxy Interactions: Star Formation Rates and Galaxy Properties

We study star formation in a sample of 1204 galaxies in minor (Δm_z>=2) pair and compact groups, drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5. We analyze an analogous sample of 2409 galaxies in major (Δm_z<2) pair and compact groups to ensure that our selection reproduces previous results, and we use a ``field'' sample of 65,570 galaxies for comparison. Our major and minor pair samples include only galaxies in spectroscopically confirmed pair, where the recessional velocity separation ΔV<500 km s^-1 and the projected spatial separation ΔD<50 kpc h^-1. The relative magnitude (a proxy for the mass ratio) of the pair is an important parameter in the effectiveness of the tidally triggered star formation in minor interactions. As expected, the secondary galaxies in minor pair show evidence for tidally triggered star formation, whereas the primary galaxies in the minor pair do not. The galaxy color is also an important parameter in the effectiveness of triggered star formation in the major galaxy pair. In the major pair sample, there is a correlation between the specific Hα star formation rate (SSFR) and ΔD in the blue primary and blue secondary galaxies; for the red primary and red secondary galaxies, there is none. Galaxies in pair have a higher mean SSFR at every absolute magnitude compared to matched sets of field galaxies, and the relative increase in mean SSFR becomes larger with decreasing intrinsic luminosity. We also detect a significantly increased AGN fraction in the pair galaxies compared to matched sets of field galaxies.