Infrared Galaxies in the Nearby Universe

We used the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 (DR5) to study the morphological properties of 1137 nearby infrared (IR) galaxies, most of which are brighter than 15.9 mag in r-band. This sample was drawn front a cross-correlation of the Infra-Red Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) point source catalog redshift survey with DR5 at z less than or similar to 0.08. Based on this IR galaxy sample, we constructed five volume-limited sub-samples with IR luminosity ranging from 10(9.5) L-circle dot to 10(12) L-circle dot. By deriving the IR luminosity functions (LF) for different morphological types, we found that normal spiral galaxies are the dominant population below L-IR similar to 8 x 10(10) L-circle dot; while the fraction of barred spiral galaxies increases with increasing IR luminosity and becomes dominant in spiral galaxies beyond L-IR similar or equal to 5 x 10(10) L-circle dot. As the IR luminosity decreases, the IR galaxies become more compact and have lower stellar masses. The analysis also shows that normal spiral galaxies give the dominant contribution to the total comoving IR energy density in the nearby universe, while, in contrast, the contribution from peculiar galaxies is only 39%.