Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 424, Issue 3, Pages 2180-2192Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21377.x
Keywords
surveys; galaxies: evolution; galaxies: ISM; galaxies: spiral; galaxies: statistics; galaxies: structure
Categories
Funding
- Leverhulme Trust
- STFC [ST/I001204/1]
- NASA [PF9-00069, NAS8-03060]
- NSF [AST-0607007, AST-1107390]
- Brinson Foundation
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- US Department of Energy
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1107390] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/H007156/1, ST/I001212/1, ST/I001204/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/I001212/1, ST/I001204/1, ST/H007156/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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We study the observed correlation between atomic gas content and the likelihood of hosting a large-scale bar in a sample of 2090 disc galaxies. Such a test has never been done before on this scale. We use data on morphologies from the Galaxy Zoo project and information on the galaxies H?I content from the Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFALFA) blind H?I survey. Our main result is that the bar fraction is significantly lower among gas-rich disc galaxies than gas-poor ones. This is not explained by known trends for more massive (stellar) and redder disc galaxies to host more bars and have lower gas fractions: we still see at fixed stellar mass a residual correlation between gas content and bar fraction. We discuss three possible causal explanations: (1) bars in disc galaxies cause atomic gas to be used up more quickly, (2) increasing the atomic gas content in a disc galaxy inhibits bar formation and (3) bar fraction and gas content are both driven by correlation with environmental effects (e.g. tidal triggering of bars, combined with strangulation removing gas). All three explanations are consistent with the observed correlations. In addition our observations suggest bars may reduce or halt star formation in the outer parts of discs by holding back the infall of external gas beyond bar co-rotation, reddening the global colours of barred disc galaxies. This suggests that secular evolution driven by the exchange of angular momentum between stars in the bar, and gas in the disc, acts as a feedback mechanism to regulate star formation in intermediate-mass disc galaxies.
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