The Bar Fraction in COSMOSby Stellar Mass, Morphology, SSFR,

& Environmental Density

Ewan Cameron (ETH-Zurich)& many members of the COSMOS team

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Bar formation in a cosmological context

Self-gravitating, rotationally-supported stellar disks are inherently prone to growth of various instabilities

(Toomre 1964) : Q = κ σR / (3.36 G Σ) < 1 (unstable)

One key mode of disk instability : bar formation (Hohl 1971)

In a cosmological context : the assembly history of the barred galaxy population should reflect the assembly history of stellar disks prone to bar instabilities

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Bar formation in a cosmological context

However

Bar instabilities can be effectively damped by the presence of a massive halo or classical bulge(Athanassoula & Sellwood 1986, Athanassoula 2003)

Near ‘fly-bys’ with neighboring galaxies can serve as external triggers of bar formation (Mihos & Hernquist 1994)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Conflicting measurements of the bar fraction at high redshift :

Abraham et al. (1999, HDF), van den Bergh et al. (2000, HDF), and Sheth et al. (2008, COSMOS) all find a decreasing bar fraction to z ~ 1

Jogee et al. (2004, GEMS) & Elmegreen et al. (2004, Tadpole ACS field) find a constant bar fraction to z ~ 1

Bar formation in observational studies

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Conflicting measurements of the dependence of bar fraction on disk type :

Marinova et al. (2009, STAGES) and Barazza et al. (2009, EDisCs) find bars more prevalent in bluer, later-type disks

Sheth et al. (2008, COSMOS) find bars more prevalent in redder, bulge-dominated disks

Bar formation in observational studies

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Until COSMOS (Sheth et al. 2008), previous studies of barred galaxy evolution focussed on luminosity-limited selections

Sheth et al. (2008) : adopt an evolving luminosity limit & reveal a stellar mass dependence of bar fraction within this sample

And, of course, we know ...galaxy evolutionary histories are tied closely to stellar mass (e.g. Bundy et al. 2005, Peng et al. 2010)

Bar formation in observational studies

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Our aim : To establish explicitly the dependence of the bar fraction in COSMOS on mass, morphological type, SSFR, and environment for a mass-limited sample

Sample selection : 916 galaxies from ACS catalog (Leauthaud et al. 2007)0.2 < z < 0.6 (ZEBRA photo-zs, Feldmann et al. 2006)log M > 10.5 (ZEBRA+ stellar masses, Oesch et al. ~2010)disk morphological types (ZEST+, Carollo et al. ~2010)e < 0.3 (SExtractor)

SSFRs from UV + IR (24 µm) (Le Floc’h et al. 2009, Rieke et al. 2009)Environments from large-scale surface density catalog (Scoville et al. 2007)

A new analysis of bars in COSMOS

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

ZEST+ classifications & ellipse-fit bars

Early-Type Barred Disks

Early-Type Non-Barred Disks

Late-Type Barred Disks

Late-Type Non-Barred Disks

ZEST+ performs SVM-based galaxy classifications using: C, S, M20, Gini, e, n, etc.

Features improved algorithms for measuring these indices compared to original ZEST

Strong bars identified via popular ellipse-fitting method (e > 0.4)plus visual quality control

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Bar detection limits tested via artificial galaxy simulations:

Input model B/T Bar/T Re/h n nbar Lbar/H(1) Early-Type 0.4 0.15 0.2 4 0.7 1.15(2) Early-Type 0.2 0.15 0.2 2.5 0.7 1.15(3) Early-Type 0.6 0.15 0.2 4 0.7 1.15(4) Late-Type 0.1 0.10 0.1 1 0.9 0.90

GALFIT used to generate models, convolved with COSMOS PSF and inserted into COSMOS background sky image

Ellipse-fit automatic detection procedure applied to simulated image

Test of bar detection limits via sims.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Results for both early-type and late-type models demonstrate that bars are readily detectable in our sample, except at small sizes ~ Re < 0.33 arcsec

Therefore, a size cut is also needed to account for evolution in apparent angular size : fix limit to Re > 2.2 kpc (i.e., 0.33 arcsec at z = 0.6)

Test of bar detection limits via sims.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Local universe comparison sample derived from Nair & Abraham (2010)

Equivalent sample selection: 0.02 < z < 0.04 Disk morph. log M > 10.5 e < 0.3 Re-run ellipse-fit selection procedure to ensure sample consistency : some disagreements against vis. catalog

One final ingredient : Low z comparison

Galaxies with conflicting bar classifications

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Bars more common in early-type disks than late-type disks at intermediate stellar mass (10.5 < log M/Msun < 11)!

Results : Cameron et al. (2010)

Morphology SSFR Environ. Density

Redshift

Bar

Fra

ctio

n

Int.

Mas

sH

igh

Mas

s

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

And these is moderate evolution in the bar fraction at intermediate stellar mass!

Results : Cameron et al. (2010)

Morphology SSFR Environ. Density

Redshift

Bar

Fra

ctio

n

Int.

Mas

sH

igh

Mas

s

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

At high stellar mass (log M/Msun > 11) bars are more common in late-type disks!

Results : Cameron et al. (2010)

Morphology SSFR Environ. Density

Redshift

Bar

Fra

ctio

n

Int.

Mas

sH

igh

Mas

s

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

And the total bar fraction exhibits null evolution, or perhaps a slight decrease, at high stellar mass!

Results : Cameron et al. (2010)

Morphology SSFR Environ. Density

Redshift

Bar

Fra

ctio

n

Int.

Mas

sH

igh

Mas

s

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Finally, there appears to be no dependence of the bar fraction on environmental density (caveat: photo-z dens.)

Results : Cameron et al. (2010)

Morphology SSFR Environ. Density

Redshift

Bar

Fra

ctio

n

Int.

Mas

sH

igh

Mas

s

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The galaxy bar fraction and its evolution is strongly mass dependent!

Null evolution of the high mass galaxy bar fraction to z ~ 0.6 is consistent with observed null evolution in size function of large disks (Sargent et al. 2007) and TF of massive disks (Ziegler et al. 2002) to z ~ 1, indicating theHubble sequence is in place by z ~ 1 for high mass galaxies

While the disk population at intermediate masses continues to evolve structurally to the present day

Conclusions : Cameron et al. (2010)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The galaxy bar fraction and its evolution is strongly mass dependent!

Earlier build up in the early-type barred galaxy population relative to the late-type barred population at intermediate mass may reflect earlier formation epoch of early-type discs, i.e., these galaxies have evolved for longer in a dynamical state conducive to bar formation

Inversion in relative bar fractions of early-type and late-type disks at high mass may reflect a dependence of early-type bulge-to-disk ratio, or inner disk velocity dispersion, on mass

Conclusions : Cameron et al. (2010)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

In COSMOS : Using Zurich bulge-disk decomposition catalog we could explore the relation between bar fraction and the properties of component bulges and disks :

e.g., do massive bulges indeed suppress bar formation? e.g., are bars indeed favoured in higher surface mass disks?

In ZENS : Role of group environment in promoting, or delaying, bar formation (coming soon!!)

In GAMA : A definitive benchmark of the near-IR barred galaxy population from ~50,000 galaxies at z < 0.1 with VISTA sub-arcsec YJHK imaging

Future Work : Cameron et al. (2010)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

The Bar Fraction in COSMOSby Stellar Mass, Morphology, SSFR,

& Environmental Density

Ewan Cameron (ETH-Zurich)

THE END

Wednesday, June 9, 2010