Morphology driven evolution of barred galaxies in OMEGAWINGS Clusters

TL;DR

This study investigates how the environment within galaxy clusters influences the presence and characteristics of barred galaxies, revealing that morphological type and local interactions play key roles in bar formation and survival.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the environmental dependence of bar fractions, emphasizing the role of galaxy morphology and local tidal forces in cluster settings.

Findings

Bar fraction correlates with galaxy mass and type, peaking in massive late-type galaxies.

Bar fraction decreases with cluster mass and proximity to cluster center, controlled by morphology.

Close galaxy interactions can suppress or destroy bars, especially at larger clustercentric distances.

Abstract

We present a study of barred galaxies in the cluster environment, exploiting a sample of galaxies drawn from the extended WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (OmegaWINGS) that covers up to the outer regions of 32 local X-ray selected clusters. Barred galaxies are identified through a semi-automatic analysis of ellipticity and position angle profiles. We find, in agreement with previous studies, a strong co-dependence of the bar fraction with the galaxy stellar mass and morphological type, being maximum for massive late-type galaxies. The fraction of barred galaxies decreases with increasing cluster mass and with decreasing clustercentric distance, a dependence that vanishes once we control for morphological type, which indicates that the likelihood of a galaxy hosting a bar in the cluster environment is determined by its morphological transformation. At large clustercentric distances, we detect a dependence on the distance to the nearest neighbor galaxy, suggesting that tidal forces with close companions are able to suppress the formation of bars or even destroy them. Barred galaxies in our sample are either early-type, star forming galaxies located within the virial radii of the clusters or late-type quenched galaxies found beyond the virial radii of the clusters. We propose a scenario in which already quenched barred galaxies that fall into the clusters are centrally rejuvenated by the interplay of the perturbed gas by ram-pressure and the bar, in galaxies that are undergoing a morphological transformation.