Secular evolution in barred galaxies

Abstract

A strong bar rotating within a massive halo should lose angular momentum to the halo through dynamical friction, as predicted by Weinberg. We have conducted fully self-consistent, numerical simulations of barred galaxy models with a live halo population and find that bars are indeed braked very rapidly. Specifically, we find that the bar slows sufficiently within a few rotation periods that the distance from the centre to co-rotation is more than twice the semi-major axis of the bar. Observational evidence (meagre) for bar pattern speeds seems to suggest that this ratio typically lies between 1.2 to 1.5 in real galaxies. We consider a number of possible explanations for this discrepancy between theoretical prediction and observation, and conclude that no conventional alternative seems able to account for it.