A Study of Outer-ring Galaxies within z<0.05

This study classified outer-ring galaxies using 25,308 galaxies within z=0.05 from the SDSS DR7, which are larger than R-pet>6 arcsec and whose minor-to-major axis ratio (b/a)<0.6. We selected 531 galaxies that have ring-like structures by visual inspection of the color images of 25,308 galaxies; these galaxies with ring-like structures served as a primary sample from which we selected 90 outer-ring galaxies. The final sample of 69 outer-ring galaxies was selected by examining the photometric properties of the candidate galaxies. Their properties were determined by conducting surface photometry on their u, g, r, i, and z images. The frequency of the outer-ring galaxies was found to be 0.3% of the local galaxies. We examined the environment of the outer-ring galaxies using two measures of environment, namely, the projected distance to the nearest-neighbor galaxy and the local background density. We did not observe any notable difference between outer-ring and other galactic environments.