Invited review to be published in "Chaos in Astronomy",
G. Contopoulos, P.A. Patsis (eds.)
arXiv:0802.0495
For a PDF version of the article, click here.
BARRED GALAXIES: AN OBSERVER'S PERSPECTIVE
Dimitri A. Gadotti
Max
Planck Institute for Astrophysics
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, D-85741 Garching bei München, Germany
dimitri@mpa-garching.mpg.de
Abstract. I review both well established and more recent findings
on the properties of bars, and their host galaxies, stemming from
photometric and spectroscopic observations, and discuss how these
findings can be understood in terms of a global picture of the formation
and evolution of bars, keeping a connection with theoretical
developments. In particular, I show the results of a detailed structural
analysis of 
300
barred galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey,
providing physical quantities, such as bar length, ellipticity and
boxyness, and bar-to-total luminosity ratio, that can either be used as
a solid basis on which realistic models can be built, or be compared
against more fundamental theoretical results. I also show correlations
that indicate that bars grow longer, thinner and stronger with dynamical
age, and that the growth of bars and bulges is connected. Finally, I
briefly discuss open questions and possible directions for future
research.
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