Dissecting galaxy triplets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release
  10: I. Stellar populations and emission line analysis
  We identify isolated galaxy triplets in a volume-limited sample from the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10. Our final sample has 80 galaxy
systems in the redshift range 0.04$\le$z$\le$0.1, brighter than $M_r = -20.5 +
5\log h_{70}$. Spectral synthesis results and WHAN and BPT diagnostic diagrams
were employed to classify the galaxies in these systems as star-forming, active
nuclei, or passive/retired.
  Our results suggest that the brightest galaxies drive the triplet evolution,
as evidenced by the strong correlations between properties as mass assembly and
mean stellar population age with triplet properties. Galaxies with intermediate
luminosity or the faintest one within the triplet seem to play a secondary
role. Moreover, the relation between age and stellar mass of galaxies is
similar for these galaxies but different for the brightest galaxy in the
system. Most of the triplet galaxies are passive or retired, according to the
WHAN classification. Low mass triplets present different fractions of WHAN
classes when compared to higher mass triplets. A census of WHAN class
combinations shows the dominance of star-forming galaxies in low mass triplets
while retired and passive galaxies prevail in high-mass systems. We argue that
these results suggest that the local environment, through galaxy interactions
driven by the brightest galaxy, is playing a major role in triplet evolution.
