Is the far border of the Local Void expanding?
  According to models of evolution in the hierarchical structure formation
scenarios, voids of galaxies are expected to expand. The Local Void (LV) is the
closest large void, and it provides a unique opportunity to test
observationally such an expansion. It has been found that the Local Group,
which is on the border of the LV, is running away from the void center at ~260
km/s. In this study we investigate the motion of the galaxies at the far-side
border of the LV to examine the presence of a possible expansion. We selected
late-type, edge-on spiral galaxies with radial velocities between 3000 km/s and
5000 km/s, and carried out HI 21 cm line and H-band imaging observations. The
near-infrared Tully-Fisher relation was calibrated with a large sample of
galaxies and carefully corrected for Malmquist bias. It was used to compute the
distances and the peculiar velocities of the LV sample galaxies. Among the 36
sample LV galaxies with good quality HI line width measurements, only 15
galaxies were selected for measuring their distances and peculiar velocities,
in order to avoid the effect of Malmquist bias. The average peculiar velocity
of these 15 galaxies is found to be -419+208-251 km/s, which is not
significantly different from zero. Due to the intrinsically large scatter of
Tully-Fisher relation, we cannot conclude whether there is a systematic motion
against the center of the LV for the galaxies at the far-side boundary of the
void. However, our result is consistent with the hypothesis that those galaxies
at the far-side boundary have an average velocity of ~260 km/s equivalent to
what is found at the position of the Local Group.
