Galaxy Zoo: Bar Lengths in Nearby Disk Galaxies

TL;DR

This study analyzes bar lengths in 3150 nearby disk galaxies from Galaxy Zoo 2, revealing correlations between bar size, galaxy color, bulge presence, and spiral arm connection, with measurements made publicly available.

Contribution

It provides a large, community-measured dataset of bar lengths in local galaxies and explores their relationships with galaxy properties, highlighting new correlations and measurement reproducibility.

Findings

Longer bars are found in redder, bulge-hosting galaxies.

Bar length correlates with galaxy color and bulge presence.

Bar and ring connections influence bar length and galaxy color.

Abstract

We present an analysis of bar length measurements of 3150 local galaxies in a volume limited sample of low redshift (z < 0.06) disk galaxies. Barred galaxies were initially selected from the Galaxy Zoo 2 project, and the lengths and widths of the bars were manually drawn by members of the Galaxy Zoo community using a Google Maps interface. Bars were measured independently by different observers, multiple times per galaxy (>=3), and we find that observers were able to reproduce their own bar lengths to 3% and each others' to better than 20%. We find a "color bimodality" in our disk galaxy population with bar length, i.e., longer bars inhabit redder disk galaxies and the bars themselves are redder, and that the bluest galaxies host the smallest galactic bars (< 5 kpc/h). We also find that bar and disk colors are clearly correlated, and for galaxies with small bars, the disk is, on average, redder than the bar colors, while for longer bars the bar then itself is redder, on average, than the disk. We further find that galaxies with a prominent bulge are more likely to host longer bars than those without bulges. We categorise our galaxy populations by how the bar and/or ring are connected to the spiral arms. We find that galaxies whose bars are directly connected to the spiral arms are preferentially bluer and that these galaxies host typically shorter bars. Within the scatter, we find that stronger bars are found in galaxies which host a ring (and only a ring). The bar length and width measurements used herein are made publicly available for others to use (http://data.galaxyzoo.org).