We present a comprehensive study of the local environments of four E+S galaxy pairs with the main goal to investigate their formation/evolution histories .

We obtained new XMM-Newton data for two pairs ( RR 143 and RR 242 ) that complements existing ROSAT data for the other two ( RR 210 and RR 216 ) .
The new observations reveal diffuse X-ray emission in both pairs with luminosities of L _ { X } \sim 3 \times 10 ^ { 41 } erg s ^ { -1 } ( 0.5-2.0 keV ) .
The emission is asymmetric in both cases and extends out to \sim 500″ ( 120 kpc ) and 700″ ( 160 kpc ) in RR 143 and RR 242 respectively .
The nucleus of RR 242 hosts a low luminosity ( L _ { X } \sim 10 ^ { 41 } erg s ^ { -1 } , 2.0-10 keV ) mildly absorbed ( N _ { H } \sim 10 ^ { 22 } cm ^ { -2 } ) AGN .
We find that the early-type components of pairs with diffuse hot gas appear to be relaxed objects while those in RR 210 and RR 216 , where no diffuse emission has been found , display unambiguous signatures of ongoing interaction .

New wide-field V and R-band observations are used to study the photometric properties of the early-type components and to search for candidate faint galaxy populations around each of the pairs .
While no diffuse optical light is found for any of the pairs , all of the early-type members show very extended and concentric luminous envelopes .
We identify a faint galaxy sample in each field and we consider whether they could be physically associated with the luminous pairs based upon ( V - R ) colors and photometric properties .
We find that the distribution of r _ { e } and M _ { R } for the candidates are similar in three of the fields ( RR 143 , 216 and 242 ) .
The same selection criteria applied to the field of RR 210 suggest a fainter and more compact population possibly suggesting a larger background fraction than in the other fields .