2003/05/29 by Kartik Sheth, Michael W. Regan, Nick Scoville +3 · 100 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Bar (unit) #Barred spiral galaxy #Fraction (chemistry) #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Hubble Deep Field #Hubble Ultra-Deep Field #Redshift #Space Technology and Applications #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/377329
published in The Astrophysical Journal 592(1), L13-L16 (IOP Publishing) · Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 4 pages in emulate-apj style, includes 3 figures
arxiv created 2003/05/29 · openalex publication_date 2003/06/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Previous optical studies found an unexpected deficit of bars at z > 0.7. To investigate the effects of band shifting, we have studied the fraction of barred spiral galaxies in the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) Hubble Deep Field-North. At z > 0.7, we find at least four barred spiral galaxies, doubling the number previously detected. The number of barred galaxies is small because these (and previous) data lack adequate spatial resolution. A typical 5 kpc bar at z > 0.7 is only marginally detectable for the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) at 0.8 μm; the NICMOS data even have lower resolution and can only find the largest bars. The average size of the four bars seen at z > 0.7 is 12 kpc. The fraction of such large bars (4/95) is higher than that seen in nearby spiral galaxies (1/44); all known selection effects suggest that the observed fraction is a lower limit. However, important caveats such as small numbers and difficulties in defining comparable samples at high and low redshifts should be noted. We conclude that there is no significant evidence of a decrease in the fraction of barred spiral galaxies beyond z ~ 0.7.