The Host Galaxies of Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies: Evidence for Bar-Driven Fueling

Abstract

We present a study of the host galaxy morphologies of narrow- and broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1's and BLS1's) based on broadband optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope archives. We find that large-scale stellar bars, starting at ~1 kpc from the nucleus, are much more common in NLS1's than BLS1's. Furthermore, the fraction of NLS1 spirals that have bars increases with decreasing full width at half-maximum of the broad component of Hβ. These results suggest a link between the large-scale bars, which can support high fueling rates to the inner kiloparsecs, and the high mass accretion rates associated with the supermassive black holes in NLS1's.