Cosmic Evolution of Disk Galaxies seen through Bars

The presence of a bar in disk galaxies indicates that galaxies reached their dynamical maturity, and secular evolution has started to play key roles in the evolution of disk galaxies. Numerical simulations predicted that as a barred galaxy evolves, the bar becomes longer by capturing its immediate neighbor disk stars. We test the hypothesis by exploring bar lengths and measuring the light deficit around the bar at various redshift. Supplementing already classified barred galaxies in later type disk galaxies ($$T{\geq_-}2$$, Sheth et al. 2008), we classify barred galaxies among earlier type disk galaxies (T<2) up to z~0.8 using F814W images from the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS). We estimate the length of bars analytically for ~400 galaxies, and find that there is a slight decrease in bar length with redshift. We also find that longer bars show more prominent light deficit around the bar and this trend is stronger for nearby galaxies. Our results are consistent with the predictions from numerical simulations, and imply that the bar induced secular evolution is already in place since z~0.8.