Bars in hydrodynamical cosmological simulations

Abstract

We study the properties of two bars formed in fully cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of Milky Way-mass galaxies. In one case, the bar formed in a system with disc, bulge and halo components, and is relatively strong and long, as could be expected for a system where the spheroid strongly influences the evolution. The second bar is less strong, shorter and formed in a galaxy with no significant bulge component. We study the strength and length of the bars, the stellar density profiles along and across the bars, and the velocity fields in the bar region. We compare them with the results of dynamical (idealized) simulations and with observations, and find, in general, a good agreement, although we detect some important differences as well. Our results show that more or less realistic bars can form naturally in a Λ cold dark matter cosmology, and open up the possibility to study the bar formation process in a more consistent way than previously done, since the host galaxies grow, accrete matter and significantly evolve during the formation and evolution of the bar.