Properties of barred galaxies with the environment

II. The case of the Cosmic Web around the Virgo cluster

¹ Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de La Serena Av. Raúl Bitrán 1305 1700000 La Serena, Chile
² Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. C/ Vía Láctea s/n 38200 La Laguna Tenerife, Spain
³ Departamento de Astrofísica de la Universidad de La Laguna E-38206 La Laguna, Spain
⁴ Instituto de Astronomía y Ciencias Planetarias, Universidad de Atacama Avenida Copayapu 485 1530000 Copiapó, Chile
⁵ Departamento de Física, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria Av. Vicuña Mackenna 3939 8940897 San Joaquín Santiago, Chile
⁶ Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA), Unidad Asociada al CSIC Plaza San Juan 1 44001 Teruel, Spain

^★ Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 11 July 2025
Accepted: 26 September 2025

Abstract

Context. Bars are elongated structures developed by a large fraction of disk galaxies in their central few kiloparsecs. However, the bar formation process is still not fully understood, particularly the role played by the galaxy environment in the formation and evolution of these structures.

Aims. The aim of this work is to establish how the galaxy environment affects the evolution of bars by analyzing the bar structural parameters in a sample of galaxies located in three different galaxy environments: in the Virgo cluster, in filaments in the Cosmic Web around it, and in the field.

Methods. We performed structural analysis using optical imaging from the DESI Legacy survey, measuring bar radii and disk scale lengths through Fourier analysis and surface brightness fitting techniques.

Results. After defining a homogeneous sample of barred galaxies across the three different galaxy environments in terms of color and magnitude, the median bar radii were found to be 2.54 ± 0.34 kpc, 3.29 ± 0.38 kpc, and 4.44 ± 0.81 kpc in the cluster, filaments, and field environments, respectively. In addition, the median bar radii scaled by the disk scale lengths were found to be 1.26 ± 0.09, 1.72 ± 0.11, and 2.57 ± 0.21 in the cluster, filaments, and field environments, respectively. These results indicate that the galaxy environment has a significant influence on the structural parameters of bars, with bars in high-density environments being shorter and less prominent than those in the field.

Conclusions. Our findings can be interpreted in terms of a slowing of the secular evolution of bars in dense galaxy environments. Barred galaxies located in clusters could experience a reduced rate of bar secular evolution due to various physical processes that occur in high-density environments, such as gas stripping, strangulation, or tidal interactions.