Characterizing Barred Galaxies in the Abell 901/902 Supercluster from STAGES

Marinova, I.; Jogee, S.; Bacon, D.; Balogh, M.;Barden, M.; Barazza, F. D.; Bell, E. F.; Böhm, A.;Caldwell, J. A. R.; Gray, M. E.; Häussler, B.;Heymans, C.; Jahnke, K.; van Kampen, E.; Koposov, S.;Lane, K.; McIntosh, D. H.; Meisenheimer, K.;Peng, C. Y.; Rix, H.-W.; Sánchez, S. F.; Taylor, A.;Wisotzki, L.; Wolf, C.; Zheng, X.. Characterizing Barred Galaxies in the Abell 901/902 Supercluster from STAGES. New Horizons in Astronomy: Frank N. Bash Symposium 2007 ASP Conference Series, Vol. 393, proceedings of the conference held 14-16 October 2007 at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA. Edited by Anna Frebel, Justyn R. Maund, Juntai Shen, and Michael H. Siegel. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2008., p.231. 2008, Vol. , p. -2008.

In dense clusters, higher densities at early epochs as well as physical processes, such as ram pressure stripping and tidal interactions become important, and can have direct consequences for the evolution of bars and their host disks. To study bars and disks as a function of environment, we are using the STAGES ACS HST survey of the Abell 901/902 supercluster (z˜~0.165), along with earlier field studies based the SDSS and the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey (OSUBSGS). We explore the limitations of traditional methods for characterizing the bar fraction, and in particular highlight uncertainties in disk galaxy selection in cluster environments. We present an alternative approach for exploring the proportion of bars, and investigate the properties of bars as a function of host galaxy color, Sérsic index, stellar mass, star formation rate (SFR), specific SFR, and morphology