The effects of bar strength and kinematics on galaxy evolution – II. The global and local impacts of slow-strong bars

ABSTRACT There is now clear evidence, from a variety of studies, that galactic bars contribute to and/or accelerate processes that quench galaxies. However, bars have a variety of strengths and pattern speeds, and previous work has suggested that slow and strong bars impact their hosts the most. In this paper, we continue to investigate the impact of bar strength and bar speed on host galaxy evolution in a sample of barred galaxies identified via classifications from Galaxy Zoo. We perform a comprehensive assessment of star formation tracers spanning a variety of time-scales, based on spatially resolved spectroscopic information from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. Specifically, we examine the radial distributions of EW [H $\alpha$], H $\delta _\mathrm{A}$, H $\beta$, and Dn4000; spectral data that trace star formation on current, intermediate, and much longer time-scales. We investigate how these star formation tracers vary with respect to each other in diagnostic evolutionary planes for eight categories of barred galaxies (combinations of star forming or quenching; strong and weak; fast and slow). We continue to find that slow-strong bars drive the quenching of their hosts the most by triggering active star formation throughout the barred region; however, we note some additional complexity: we observe that stronger bars boost star formation at the bar centre while slower bars have increased star formation along the bar. This work adds to the growing evidence that galactic bars have both global and local impacts on their host galaxies.

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Publication Details

Journal
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published
2026-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag561
Primary Topic
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

The effects of bar strength and kinematics on galaxy evolution – II. The global and local impacts of slow-strong bars

Petra Mengistu, Tobias Géron, Chris Lintott, B D Simmons et al.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
article

The effects of bar strength and kinematics on galaxy evolution – II. The global and local impacts of slow-strong bars

Petra Mengistu, Tobias Géron, Chris Lintott, B D Simmons, Karen L Masters, R J Smethurst
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is now clear evidence, from a variety of studies, that galactic bars contribute to and/or accelerate processes that quench galaxies. However, bars have a variety of strengths and pattern speeds, and previous work has suggested that slow and strong bars impact their hosts the most. In this paper, we continue to investigate the impact of bar strength and bar speed on host galaxy evolution in a sample of barred galaxies identified via classifications from Galaxy Zoo. We perform a comprehensive assessment of star formation tracers spanning a variety of time-scales, based on spatially resolved spectroscopic information from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. Specifically, we examine the radial distributions of EW [H $\alpha$], H $\delta _\mathrm{A}$, H $\beta$, and Dn4000; spectral data that trace star formation on current, intermediate, and much longer time-scales. We investigate how these star formation tracers vary with respect to each other in diagnostic evolutionary planes for eight categories of barred galaxies (combinations of star forming or quenching; strong and weak; fast and slow). We continue to find that slow-strong bars drive the quenching of their hosts the most by triggering active star formation throughout the barred region; however, we note some additional complexity: we observe that stronger bars boost star formation at the bar centre while slower bars have increased star formation along the bar. This work adds to the growing evidence that galactic bars have both global and local impacts on their host galaxies.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyVol. 548(2)
Haverford College (US), University of California, Santa Cruz (US), University of Toronto (CA), University of Oxford (GB), Lancaster University (GB)
National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, University of Utah, Office of Science
Openalex Percentile: Top 21%
Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
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