Bar Evolution in Edge-on Galaxies: A Demographic Study of Boxy/Peanut Bulges

Abstract

Boxy/peanut and X-shaped (BP/X) bulges are prominent features in edge-on disk galaxies and are believed to be vertically thickened bars. Despite their relevance in bar evolution, a statistically robust census of these structures in large surveys has been lacking. We aim to provide the largest catalog of BP/X structures in edge-on galaxies to date, and to investigate their properties and role in shaping galaxy scaling relations. We selected a sample of 6684 edge-on galaxies from SDSS DR8 using Galaxy Zoo classifications, requiring a high edge-on probability ($>0.9$) and a minimum of 10 independent votes. Two-dimensional image decomposition is performed using GALFIT to obtain structural parameters. Residual images are visually inspected to classify BP/X features into four categories: strong both-sided, both-sided, one-sided, and control (no BP/X). We also estimated stellar mass, distance, and physical size for each galaxy. Out of 6653 classified galaxies, we identified 1673 ($\sim$25%) with both-sided BP/X features-504 ($\sim$8%) strong and 1169 ($\sim$17%) weak-as well as 1112 ($\sim$17%) one-sided structures, making up a total of 2785 BP/X-hosting galaxies ($\sim$42%). One-sided structures, likely signatures of ongoing buckling, are more frequent than strong both-sided bulges across all stellar masses. The fraction of BP/X bulges increases with stellar surface mass density, indicating a connection with bar formation in dense disks. We also find that galaxies with strong BP/X bulges contribute to increased scatter in the stellar mass-size and stellar mass-surface density relations, particularly at higher masses.

arXiv comment14 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A&A [accepted version]

References in corpus (86)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• The Optical and Near-Infrared Properties of Galaxies: I. Luminosity and Stellar Mass Functions
• Overview of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys
• Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models
• Galaxy Zoo : Morphologies derived from visual inspection of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
• 3D-HST+CANDELS: The Evolution of the Galaxy Size-Mass Distribution since $z=3$
• The size distribution of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Galaxy Luminosity Function and Luminosity Density at Redshift z=0.1
• Minor mergers and the size evolution of elliptical galaxies
• The Growth of Massive Galaxies Since z=2
• astroquery: An Astronomical Web-Querying Package in Python
• Galaxy Zoo 1 : Data Release of Morphological Classifications for nearly 900,000 galaxies
• A Catalog of Bulge+Disk Decompositions and Updated Photometry for 1.12 Million Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• What determines the strength and the slowdown rate of bars ?
• The size evolution of galaxies since z~3: combining SDSS, GEMS and FIRES
• The Secular Evolution of Disk Structural Parameters
• Evolution of Stellar Bars in Live Axisymmetric Halos: Recurrent Buckling and Secular Growth
• Empirical extinction coefficients for the GALEX, SDSS, 2MASS and WISE passbands
• Secular Evolution in Disk Galaxies
• The population of barred galaxies in the local universe I. Detection and characterisation of bars
• Galaxy Zoo: Bars in Disk Galaxies
• Galaxy Disks
• Where stars form: inside-out growth and coherent star formation from HST Halpha maps of 2676 galaxies across the main sequence at z~1
• The Milky Way has no in-situ halo other than the heated thick disc. Composition of the stellar halo and age-dating the last significant merger with Gaia DR2 and APOGEE
• Radial migration in galactic disks caused by resonance overlap of multiple patterns: Self-consistent simulations
• ESTABLISHING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PEANUT-SHAPED BULGES AND GALACTIC BARS
• Bar Diagnostics in Edge-On Spiral Galaxies. III. N-Body Simulations of Disks
• The Dependence of Bar Frequency on Galaxy Mass, Colour, and Gas Content -- and Angular Resolution -- in the Local Universe
• Box- and peanut-shaped bulges: I. Statistics
• On the Fraction of Barred Spiral Galaxies
• Gas Feedback on Stellar Bar Evolution
• Galaxy Zoo: An independent look at the evolution of the bar fraction over the last eight billion years from HST-COSMOS
• Characterization of galactic bars from 3.6 $\mu$m S${}^4$G imaging
• The echo of the bar buckling: phase-space spirals in Gaia DR2
• Bar quenching in gas-rich galaxies
• The X-shaped Bulge of the Milky Way revealed by WISE
• Bar-driven evolution and quenching of spiral galaxies in cosmological simulations
• The formation of stellar nuclear discs in bar-induced gas inflows
• A Catalog of Edge-on Disk Galaxies: From Galaxies with a Bulge to Superthin Galaxies
• The Frequency and Stellar-Mass Dependence of Boxy/Peanut-Shaped Bulges in Barred Galaxies
• Inclination-Dependent Luminosity Function of Spiral Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Implication for Dust Extinction
• Galaxy Zoo: the effect of bar-driven fueling on the presence of an active galactic nucleus in disc galaxies
• Effects of Gas on Formation and Evolution of Stellar Bars and Nuclear Rings in Disk Galaxies
• A Vertical Resonance Heating Model for X- or Peanut-Shaped Galactic Bulges
• Three Mechanisms for Bar Thickening
• Formation of tidally induced bars in galactic flybys: prograde versus retrograde encounters
• Bar Formation from Galaxy Flybys
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: Spatially resolved star formation in barred galaxies
• Growth of a peanut shaped bulge via resonant trapping of stellar orbits in the vertical Inner Lindblad Resonances
• The stellar mass distribution of the Milky Way's bar: an analytic model
• Age Dating the Galactic Bar with the Nuclear Stellar Disc
• Quantifying the (X/Peanut)-Shaped Structure in Edge-on Disc Galaxies: Length, Strength, and Nested Peanuts
• Molecular gas in NUclei of GAlaxies (NUGA) VII. NGC4569, a large scale bar funnelling gas into the nuclear region
• Anatomy of a buckling galactic bar
• Stellar, gas and dark matter content of barred galaxies
• Observed properties of boxy/peanut/barlens bulges
• The Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey. V. Statistical study of bars and buckled bars
• The distribution of stellar population age in galactic bars
• The distribution of star formation in galactic bars as seen with H$\alpha$ and stacked GALEX UV imaging
• Effect of bars in AGN host galaxies and black hole activity
• Box/Peanut and Bar structures in edge-on and face-on SDSS nearby galaxies I. Catalogue
• Revealing the cosmic evolution of boxy/peanut-shaped bulges from HST COSMOS and SDSS
• Caught in the Act: Direct Detection of Galactic Bars in the Buckling Phase
• Redistribution of Stars and Gas in the Star Formation Deserts of Barred Galaxies
• A Kinematic Link between Boxy Bulges, Stellar Bars, and Nuclear Activity in NGC 3079 & NGC 4388
• Nuclear Star-Forming Ring of the Milky Way: Simulations
• Box/peanut-shaped bulges in action space
• What determines the flatness of X-shaped structures in edge-on galaxies
• Revisiting the role of bars in AGN fuelling with propensity score sample matching
• A new method for age-dating the formation of bars in disc galaxies: The TIMER view on NGC1433's old bar and the inside-out growth of its nuclear disc
• Meridional tilt of the stellar velocity ellipsoid during bar buckling instability
• Violent Buckling Benefits Galactic Bars
• Galaxy Flybys: Evolution of the Bulge, Disk, and Spiral Arms
• The Effect of Dark Matter Halo Shape on Bar Buckling and Boxy/Peanut Bulges
• Is the late buckling stage inevitable in the bar life?
• Measuring the X-shaped structures in edge-on galaxies
• B/PS bulges in DESI Legacy edge-on galaxies I: Sample building
• Buckling bars in nearly face-on galaxies observed with MaNGA
• The problem of dust attenuation in photometric decomposition of edge-on galaxies and possible solutions
• Bars and boxy/peanut bulges in thin and thick discs III. Boxy/peanut bulge formation and evolution in presence of thick discs
• Growth of disc-like pseudo-bulges in SDSS DR7 since z = 0.1
• Boxy/peanut bulges : formation, evolution and properties
• Phase-space distortion as a key to unraveling galactic bar buckling