Discordant redshifts in compact groups of galaxies

The field galaxy contamination of galaxy quintets in Hickson's catalog of compact groups is estimated by computing the probability of the random projection of field galaxies on or near quartets in the catalog. This is done by Monte Carlo simulations based on galaxy counts in fields surrounding the quartets. Thirty-five percent of all quintets are predicted to contain a single discordant redshift due to a projected field galaxy. This agrees with the observed number of four discordant quintets in 10. These results are consistent with the cosmological interpretation of galaxy redshifts. 18 references