Can Dumbbell Galaxies Be Equilibrium Systems?

There exists a large body of work on the interactions of close galaxy pairs. However, most of the theoretical work has concentrated on violent interactions between the components which lead to rapid evolution (mergers, tidal tails,…). In this work we attempt an equilibrium description of binary systems to investigate the circumstances under which close binary galaxies can be long-lived phenomena (Rix and White, 1989).