BVRI SURFACE PHOTOMETRY OF ISOLATED GALAXY TRIPLETS

Optical broadband BVRI observations of 54 galaxies selected from the Catalog of Isolated Triplets of Galaxies in the Northern Hemisphere have been carried out at San Pedro Martir National Observatory to evaluate their photometric and morphological properties. We complement our analysis with Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images and look for signatures likely related to interactions/mergers. We report apparent/absolute BVRI magnitudes and colors for the 54 galaxies. The membership of these galaxies is re-evaluated by imposing a reasonable condition of concordant redshifts upon the original selection criteria, rendering a final sample of 34 galaxies in 13 triplets, 12 galaxies in close pairs, and 8 galaxy outliers. The triplets are spiral-dominated systems in different dynamical stages from loosely interacting to almost merged objects. The incidence fraction of features likely associated with interactions is similar to 56%, similar to those found in northern and southern compact groups. The average fraction of bars is 35% with a mean value of maximum bar ellipticity epsilon(max) approximate to 0.4. Bars are hosted in the late-type triplet spirals, almost twice more than in early-type spirals. The global fraction of rings is 20%, all in the late-type components. The overdensity of triplets with respect to the background and their current dynamical status, as devised from our estimate of their dynamical parameters, namely the harmonic radius R-H, velocity dispersion sigma, dimensionless crossing time H-0 tau(c), and virial mass M-V, appear to be sufficient to favor galaxy transformations similar to those seen in dense groups and clusters. By contrast, the lower fraction of bonafide ellipticals and the relatively higher fraction of late-type spirals make these triplets essentially different from the Hickson Compact Groups and more representative of the field. A modest 1.6 enhancement factor in the optical luminosity of the late-type triplet components relative to an isolated galaxy control sample is also interpreted as consistent with interactions in physically bounded aggregates. Our results lead us to suggest that non-negligible populations of physical triplets might be found in complete and well-observed samples. We provide individual mosaics for the 54 galaxies containing (1) logarithmic-scaled R-band images, (2) R-band sharp/filtered images, (3) (B-I) color index maps, (4) RGB images from the SDSS database, (5) co-added J + H + K images generated from the 2MASS archives that were also sharp/filtered, and (6) epsilon, position angle radial profiles from a surface photometry analysis of (a) the R band and (b)the co- added near-infrared images, all used for the present analysis.