  This paper studies systematically, for the first time, the circumgalactic
environment of bright IRAS galaxies as defined by Soifer et al. (1989). While
the role of gravitational interaction for luminous and ultraluminous IRAS
galaxies has been well established by various studies, the situation is by far
more obscure in the IR luminosity range of the bright IRAS sample, 10^{10}Lsol
< Lfir < 10^{11} Lsol. To easily identify nearby companion galaxies, the bright
IRAS sample was restricted to 87 objects with redshift range 0.008 < z < 0.018
and galactic latitude > 30^{o}. A control sample, selected from the Center for
Astrophysics redshift survey catalogue, includes 90 objects matching the Bright
IRAS sample for distribution of isophotal diameter, redshift, and morphological
type. From a search of nearby companion galaxies within 250 Kpc on the
second-generation Digitized Sky Survey (DSS-II), we found that the
circumgalactic environment of the Bright IRAS galaxies contains more large
companions than the galaxies in the optically selected control sample, and is
similar to that of Seyfert 2 galaxies. We found a weak correlation over a wide
range of far IR luminosity (10^9 Lsol < Lfir < 10^{12.5}Lsol) between projected
separation and Lfir, which confirms a very close relationship between star
formation rate of a galaxy and the strength of gravitational perturbations. We
also find that the far IR colors depend on whether a source is isolated or
interacting. Finally, we discuss the intrinsic difference and evolution
expectations for the bright IRAS galaxies and the control sample, as well as
the relationship between starbursting and active galaxies.
