Bar instability in cosmological halos

Abstract

Aims: We want to investigate the growth of bar instability in stellar disks embedded in a suitable dark matter halo evolving in a fully consistent cosmological framework. Methods: We perform seven cosmological simulations to emphasise the role of both the disk-to-halo mass ratio and of the Toomre parameter, Q, on the evolution of the disk.We also compare our fully cosmological cases with corresponding isolated simulations where the same halo, is extracted from the cosmological scenario and evolved in physical coordinates. Results: A long living bar, lasting about 10 Gyr, appears in all our simulations. In particular, disks expected to be stable according to classical criteria, form indeed weak bars. We argue that such a result is due to the dynamical properties of our cosmological halo which is far from stability and isotropy, typical of the classical halos used in literature; it is dynamically active, endowed of substructures and infall. Conclusions: At least for mild self-gravitating disks, the study of the bar instability using isolated isotropic halos, in gravitational equilibrium, can lead to misleading results. Furthermore, the cosmological framework is needed for quantitatively investigating such an instability.