Secular Evolution in Barred Galaxies
Abstract
A strong bar rotating within a massive halo should lose angular momentum to the halo through dynamical friction, as predicted by Weinberg. We have conducted fully self-consistent, numerical simulations of barred galaxy models with a live halo population and find that bars are indeed braked very rapidly. Specifically, we find that the bar slows sufficiently within a few rotation periods that the distance from the centre to co-rotation is more than twice the semi-major axis of the bar. Observational evidence (meagre) for bar pattern speeds seems to suggest that this ratio typically lies between 1.2 to 1.5 in real galaxies. We consider, a number of possible explanations for this discrepancy between theoretical prediction and observation, and conclude that no conventional alternative seems able to account for it.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9602030,
title = {Secular Evolution in Barred Galaxies},
author = {J. A. Sellwood and Victor P. Debattista},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9602030},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
To appear in the proceedings of Nobel Symposium 98 "Barred Galaxies and Circumnuclear Activity", edited by Aa. Sandquist, P.O. Lindblad and S. J\"ors\"ater. 17 pages, latex, 6 figures