Bibcode
Méndez-Abreu, J.; Sánchez-Janssen, R.; Aguerri, J. A. L.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 711, Issue 2, pp. L61-L65 (2010).
Advertised on:
3
2010
Citations
67
Refereed citations
62
Description
We present a study of the bar fraction in the Coma Cluster galaxies
based on a sample of ~190 galaxies selected from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey Data Release 6 and observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
Advanced Camera for Survey (ACS). The unprecedented resolution of the
HST-ACS images allows us to explore the presence of bars, detected by
visual classification, throughout a luminosity range of 9 mag (-23 <~
Mr <~ -14), permitting us to study the poor known region
of dwarf galaxies. We find that bars are hosted by galaxies in a tight
range of both luminosities (-22 <~ Mr <~ -17) and
masses (10^{9} ≲ M_{*}}/{M}_{&sun;} ≲ 10^{11}). This result
holds when compared with a sample of bright/massive field galaxies. In
addition, we find that the bar fraction does not vary significantly when
going from the center to the cluster outskirts, implying that cluster
environment plays a second-order role in bar formation/evolution. The
shape of the bar fraction distribution with respect to both luminosity
and mass is well matched by the luminosity distribution of disk galaxies
in Coma, indicating that bars are good tracers of cold stellar disks. We
discuss the implications of our results for the formation and evolution
scenarios of bars and disks.
Related projects
Galaxy Evolution in Clusters of Galaxies
Galaxies in the universe can be located in different environments, some of them are isolated or in low density regions and they are usually called field galaxies. The others can be located in galaxy associations, going from loose groups to clusters or even superclusters of galaxies. One of the foremost challenges of the modern Astrophysics is to
Jairo
Méndez Abreu