Study of the dynamics of barred early type galaxies via numerical simulations

Since the 30’s and Edwin Hubble’s famous classification, galaxies are usually separated in twogroups : the late-type galaxies (LTGs) and the early-type galaxies (ETGs). The LTGs family ismainly made of spiral galaxies (S) while the ETGs family is composed of elliptical (E) and lenticular(S0) galaxies. A morphological study of all these galaxies revealed that around 60% of LTGs and45% of S0 present a bar. It has also been shown that, in the local Universe, galaxies fall into twobig groups : the blue cloud mostly populated by LTGs and the red sequence mainly made of ETGs.Several mechanisms are responsible for this distribution and the secular evolution is obviously animportant one to examine, sepcially in the context of bars, as an important number of studiesshowed the importance of bars in the dynamics and evolution of a galaxy.The goal of my thesis is to study the importance of the formation and ensued bar-drivenevolution influence on ETGs evolution. In that context, I have performed N-body simulations ofbarred (and unbarred) galaxies in order to investigate the following issues.First of all, I focused on the influence of a bar in a galaxy when modelling it with a dynamicalmodel assuming an axisymmetric mass distribution. As these kinds of models allow to determine themass-to-light ratio M/L, thus the dynamical mass of an observed galaxy, but also its inclinationand its anisotropy, it is important to evalute the consequence of the presence of a bar on theseparameters. I have shown that, depending on the galaxy inclination and the bar position angle,M/L is most of the time biased and overestimated, and this can be up to 25%. The size andstrength of the bar also seem to be important factors but a deeper study has to be done to quantifythis preliminary result.In a second step, I have studied the role of bars on the mass and metallicity redistributionsin a lenticular galaxy. I confirmed that the presence of a bar, due to its influence on its hostsystem dynamics, flattens pre-existing metallicity gradients. Moreover, I showed that the degree offlattening and the position of affected regions are directly correlated with the bar structure and thelocation of the dynamical resonances. Nonetheless, this dynamical effect cannot explain the varietyof observed ages and metallicity gradients. The consequences of a barred gravitational potentialon the gas dynamics and the stellar formation should therefore be investigated. This is the topicof the last set of numerical simulations produced which will allow to better understand the globalinfluence a bar has on the secular evolution of ETGs.

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Source https://theses.hal.science/tel-00943337
Author Lablanche, Pierre-Yves
Maintainer CCSD
Last Updated May 7, 2026, 02:05 (UTC)
Created May 7, 2026, 02:05 (UTC)
Identifier NNT: 2012LYO10043
Language en
Rights https://about.hal.science/hal-authorisation-v1/
contributor Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon (CRAL) ; École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS de Lyon) ; Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) ; Université de Lyon-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
creator Lablanche, Pierre-Yves
date 2012-04-04T00:00:00
harvest_object_id 0fe25165-27e4-4ff2-b162-9715ef546555
harvest_source_id 3374d638-d20b-4672-ba96-a23232d55657
harvest_source_title test moissonnage SELUNE
metadata_modified 2026-04-01T00:00:00
set_spec type:THESE