The Frequency of Barred Spiral Galaxies in the Near-Infrared**Based partially on observations obtained at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.
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We have determined the fraction of barred galaxies in the H-band for a statistically well-defined sample of 186 spirals drawn from the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey. We find 56% of our sample to be strongly barred in the H band while another 16% is weakly barred. Only 27% of our sample is unbarred in the near-infrared. The RC3 and the Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies both classify only about 30% of our sample as strongly barred. Thus strong bars are nearly twice as prevalent in the near-infrared as in the optical. The frequency of genuine optically hidden bars is significant but lower than many claims in the literature: 40% of the galaxies in our sample that are classified as unbarred in the RC3 show evidence for a bar in the H band while the Carnegie Atlas lists this fraction as 66%. Our data reveal no significant trend in bar fraction as a function of morphology in either the optical or H band. Optical surveys of high-redshift galaxies may be strongly biased against finding bars, as bars are increasingly difficult to detect at bluer rest wavelengths.
Eskridge, P. B., Frogel, J. A., Pogge, R. W., Quillen, A. C., Davies, R. L., DePoy, D. L., ... Tiede, G. P.
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Eskridge, Paul B||Frogel, Jay A||Pogge, Richard W||Quillen, Alice C||Davies, Roger L||DePoy, DL||Houdashelt, Mark L||Kuchinski, Leslie E||RamÃrez, Solange V||Sellgren, K||Terndrup, Donald M||Tiede, Glenn P