Bar-induced perturbation strengths of the galaxies in the Ohio State University Bright Galaxy Survey - I

Abstract

Bar-induced perturbation strengths are calculated for a well-defined magnitude-limited sample of 180 spiral galaxies, based on the Ohio State University Bright Galaxy Survey. We use a gravitational torque method, the ratio of the maximal tangential force to the mean axisymmetric radial force, as a quantitative measure of the bar strength. The gravitational potential is inferred from an H-band light distribution by assuming that the M/L ratio is constant throughout the disc. Galaxies are deprojected using orientation parameters based on B-band images. In order to eliminate artificial stretching of the bulge, two-dimensional bar–bulge–disc decomposition has been used to derive a reliable bulge model. This bulge model is subtracted from an image, the disc is deprojected assuming it is thin, and then the bulge is added back by assuming that its mass distribution is spherically symmetric. We find that removing the artificial bulge stretch is important especially for galaxies having bars inside large bulges. We also find that the masses of the bulges can be significantly overestimated if bars are not taken into account in the decomposition. Bars are identified using Fourier methods by requiring that the phases of the main modes (m= 2, m= 4) are maintained nearly constant in the bar region. With such methods, bars are found in 65 per cent of the galaxies in our sample, most of them being classified as SB-type systems in the near-infrared by Eskridge and co-workers. We also suggest that as much as ≈70 per cent of the galaxies classified as SAB-types in the near-infrared might actually be non-barred systems, many of them having central ovals. It is also possible that a small fraction of the SAB-type galaxies have weak non-classical bars with spiral-like morphologies.