Pattern speed evolution of barred galaxies in TNG50

TL;DR

This study investigates how galaxy properties influence the evolution of bar pattern speeds in realistic cosmological simulations, revealing mass-dependent behaviors and the impact of AGN feedback on bar dynamics.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of bar pattern speed evolution in the cosmological TNG50 simulation, incorporating complex physics like star formation and AGN feedback.

Findings

More massive galaxies host bars that slow down rapidly.

Lower mass galaxies retain their initial pattern speeds longer.

AGN feedback amplifies the mass dependence of bar slowdown.

Abstract

Galactic bars are found in the majority of disc galaxies. They rotate nearly rigidly with an angular frequency called pattern speed. Previous idealised simulations have shown that bar pattern speed decreases with time due to dynamical friction exerted by the dark matter halo, while cold gas can reduce or even reverse this trend. We want to understand how different galaxy properties affect the evolution of the bar pattern speed in more realistic situations, including ongoing star formation, mass infall, AGN feedback and galaxy interactions. We used the high-resolution run TNG50-1 of the magnetohydrodynamical cosmological simulations suite IllustrisTNG to trace the pattern speed of simulated bars and see how it depends on various galaxy properties. Simulated bars with initially high pattern speed and a subsequent rapid slowdown are more likely found in more massive galaxies. Lower mass galaxies, on the other hand, preferentially host bars that start at relatively low pattern speeds and retain the same value until the end of the simulation. More massive barred galaxies are also more affected by the AGN feedback, which removes (or heats up) the cold gas that could have prevented the slowdown. We find that bars grow and strengthen with slowdown, in agreement with higher resolution simulations. We find that strong correlations between the bar slowdown rate and galaxy mass weaken considerably when we use dimensionless measures to quantify the slowdown. In TNG50, the AGN feedback prescription amplifies the mass dependence. Turned around, this provides an interesting statistic to constrain subgrid physics by bar growth/slowing.