How does the gas in a disk galaxy affect the evolution of a stellar bar?

  • Published : 2017.10.10

Abstract

In barred galaxies, gaseous structures such a nuclear ring and dust lanes are formed by a non-axisymmetric stellar bar potential, and the evolution of the stellar bar is influenced by mass inflows to the center and central star formation. To study how the presence of the gas affects the evolution of the stellar bar, we use the mesh-free hydrodynamics code GIZMO and run fully self-consistent three-dimensional simulations. To explore the evolution with differing initial conditions, we vary the fraction of the gas and stability of initial disks. In cases when the initial disk is stable with Q=1.2, the bar strength in the model with 5% gas is weaker than that in the gas-free model, while the bar with 10% gas does not form a bar. This suggests that the gaseous component is unfavorable to the bar formation dynamically. On the other hand, in models with relatively unstable disk with Q=1.0, the presence of gas helps form a bar: the bar forms more rapidly and strongly as the gas fraction increases. This is because the unable disks form stars vigorously, which in turn cools down the stellar disk by adding newly-created stars with low velocity dispersion. However, the central mass concentration also quickly increases as the bar grows in these unstable models, resulting in fast bar dissolution in gas rich models. We will discuss our results in comparison with previous work.

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