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What is the True Fraction of Barred Spiral Galaxies?

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Abstract

We have determined the fraction of barred galaxies in the H-band for a statistically well-defined sample of 186 spirals. At H, 56% of our sample is strongly barred, 16% is weakly barred, and only 27% is unbarred. The RC3 and the Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies both classify roughly 30% of our sample as strongly barred. Thus strong bars are nearly twice as prevalent in the H-band as in the optical. Roughly 40% of the galaxies in our sample that are classified as unbarred in the RC3 show evidence for a bar in the H-band; for the Carnegie Atlas the fraction is roughly 60%. We find no significant trend in bar fraction as a function of morphology, in either the optical or H-band.

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Eskridge, P.B., Frogel, J.A. What is the True Fraction of Barred Spiral Galaxies?. Astrophysics and Space Science 269, 427–430 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017025820201

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017025820201

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