North Ecliptic Pole merging galaxy catalogue

The galaxies that are identified as merger candidates by the network are then visually checked by experts. The resulting mergers will be used to calculate the merger fraction as a function of redshift and compared with literature results. We found that 86.3% of galaxy mergers at z<0.15 and 79.0% of mergers at 0.15<=z<0.30 are expected to be correctly identified by the networks.

Of the 34264 galaxies classified by the neural networks, 10195 were found to be merger candidates. Of these, 2109 were visually identified to be merging galaxies. We find that the merger fraction increases with redshift, consistent with literature results from observations and simulations, and that there is a mild star-formation rate enhancement in the merger population of a factor of 1.102+/-0.084.