Morphology Driven Evolution of Barred Galaxies in OMEGAWINGS Clusters

Abstract

We present a study of barred galaxies in the cluster environment, exploiting a sample of galaxies drawn from the extended WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (OmegaWINGS) that covers up to the outer regions of 32 local X-ray selected clusters. Barred galaxies are identified through a semiautomatic analysis of ellipticity and position angle profiles. We find, in agreement with previous studies, a strong codependence of the bar fraction with the galaxy stellar mass and morphological type, being maximum for massive late-type galaxies. The fraction of barred galaxies decreases with increasing cluster mass and with decreasing clustercentric distance, a dependence that vanishes once we control for morphological type, which indicates that the likelihood of a galaxy hosting a bar in the cluster environment is determined by its morphological transformation. At large clustercentric distances, we detect a dependence on the distance to the nearest neighbor galaxy, suggesting that tidal forces with close companions are able to suppress the formation of bars or even destroy them. Barred galaxies in our sample are either early-type, star-forming galaxies located within the virial radii of the clusters or late-type quenched galaxies found beyond the virial radii of the clusters. We propose a scenario in which already quenched barred galaxies that fall into the clusters are centrally rejuvenated by the interplay of the perturbed gas by ram pressure and the bar, in galaxies that are undergoing a morphological transformation.