A potential galaxy threshing system in the COSMOS field

We report on the discovery of a new potential galaxy threshing system in the COSMOS 2 square degree field using the prime-focus camera, Suprime-Cam, on the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope. This system consists of a giant elliptical galaxy with M-V approximate to -21: 6 and a tidally disrupted satellite galaxy with M-V approximate to -17: 7 at a photometric redshift of z approximate to 0: 08. This redshift is consistent with the spectroscopic redshift of 0.079 for the giant elliptical galaxy obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archive. The luminosity masses of the two galaxies are 3: 7; 1012 and 3: 1; 109 M (circle dot), respectively. The distance between the two galaxies is greater than 100 kpc. The two tidal tails emanating from the satellite galaxy extend over 150 kpc. This system would be the second well-defined galaxy threshing system found so far.