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On the Lengths, Colours and Ages of Bars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Dimitri A. Gadotti
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, D-85741, Garching bei München, Germany email: dimitri@mpa-garching.mpg.de
Ronaldo E. de Souza
Affiliation:
Departamento de Astronomia, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, 1226, 05508-090, São Paulo-SP, Brazil
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Abstract

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In an effort to obtain further observational evidences for secular evolution processes in galaxies, as well as observational constraints to current theoretical models of secular evolution, we have used BVRI and Ks images of a sample of 18 barred galaxies to measure the lengths and colours of bars, create colour maps and estimate global colour gradients. In addition, applying a method we developed in a previous article, we could distinguish for 7 galaxies in our sample those whose bars have been recently formed from the ones with already evolved bars. We estimated an average difference in the optical colours between young and evolved bars that may be translated to an age difference of the order of 10 Gyr, meaning that bars may be long standing structures. Moreover, our results show that, on average, evolved bars are longer than young bars. This seems to indicate that, during its evolution, a bar grows longer by capturing stars from the disk, in agreement with recent numerical and analytical results.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

References

Gadotti, D. A. & de Souza, R. E. 2005, ApJ 629, 797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadotti, D. A. & de Souza, R. E. 2006, ApJS 163, 270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar