Bar formation and evolution in the cosmological context: inputs from the Auriga simulations

ABSTRACT Galactic bars drive the internal evolution of spiral galaxies, while their formation is tightly coupled to the properties of their host galaxy and dark matter halo. To explore what drives bar formation in the cosmological context and how these structures evolve throughout cosmic history, we use the Auriga suite of magneto-hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations. We find that bars are robust and long-lived structures, and we recover a decreasing bar fraction with increasing redshift which plateaus around $\sim 20~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ at $z\sim 3$. We find that bars which form at low and intermediate redshifts grow longer with time, while bars that form at high redshifts are born ‘saturated’ in length, likely due to their merger-induced formation pathway. This leads to a larger bar-to-disc size ratio at high redshifts as compared to the local Universe. We subsequently examine the multidimensional parameter space thought to drive bar formation. We find that barred galaxies tend to have lower Toomre Q values at the time of their formation, while we do not find a difference in the gas fraction of barred and unbarred populations when controlling for stellar mass. Barred galaxies tend to be more baryon-dominated at all redshifts and assemble their stellar mass earlier, while galaxies that are baryon-dominated but that do not host a bar, have a higher ex situ bulge fraction. We explore the implications of the baryon-dominance of barred galaxies on the Tully–Fisher relation, finding an offset from the unbarred relation; confirming this in observations would serve as additional evidence for dark matter, as this behaviour is not readily explained in modified gravity scenarios.