IllustrisTNG Insights: Factors Affecting the Presence of Bars in Disk Galaxies

Min Du; P. Victor Debattista; Shuai Lu

REVIEW 3 major objections 4 minor 133 references

IllustrisTNG Insights: Factors Affecting the Presence of Bars in Disk Galaxies

T0 review · 3 major / 4 minor · reviewed 2026-08-11 · deepseek-v4-flash

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Pith's one-line read Mergers suppress or destroy bars in massive disk galaxies, while extended, dynamically hot disks prevent bars in lighter ones.

desk verdict A careful statistical study of TNG bars with a plausible mass-dependent nature/nurture story, but the low-mass Toomre-Q claim is more correlational than the text admits. read the letter →

arxiv 2412.02255 v3 pith:BF3GOGC5 submitted 2024-12-03 astro-ph.GA

Shuai Lu , Min Du , P. Victor Debattista This is my paper · ORCID

classification astro-ph.GA

keywords galacticbarsdiskgalaxiesIllustrisTNGgalaxymergersToomreQparameterbarfractionsecularevolutioncosmologicalhydrodynamicalsimulations

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The reading

The paper asks why some disk galaxies in the local Universe have stellar bars and others do not, using the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulations to trace the same galaxies back in time. It claims the answer is mass-dependent: above $\log(M_*/M_\odot)\sim 10.8$, mergers are the dominant factor, heating or destroying bars, while below that mass, a more extended, dynamically hotter disk (higher Toomre-Q parameter) simply fails to respond to bar instabilities. A striking intermediate result is that the $z=0$ barred, short-bar, and unbarred disk galaxies all look similar in bar fraction and strength at $z=1$, so their different fates are decided by what happens after that epoch. This matters because reproducing the observed bar fraction is a demanding test of whether cosmological simulations get internal galaxy dynamics right.

What carries the argument

The argument is carried by a diagnostic toolkit rather than a single identity. Bars are identified by isophotal ellipse fitting (ellipticity $\epsilon$ peak, position-angle constancy, outer drop, with bar size $R_{85}$) and cross-checked by Fourier $A_2$ profiles; galaxies are followed through time with subhalo merger trees; and the difference between barred and unbarred populations is assessed by Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests on parameters that include ex-situ stellar fraction, kinematically derived stellar-halo fraction, effective radius, and rotation. The physical probe of disk responsiveness is the two-component Toomre parameter $Q_{\rm 2comp}$ from the Romeo-Wiegert approximation, which combines stellar and gaseous velocity dispersions and surface densities; the paper uses its radial profile at $z=1$, $z=0.5$, $z=0.2$, and $z=0$ to show that unbarred low-mass disks are dynamically hotter than their barred counterparts.

What would settle it

Use a higher-resolution simulation (or a successor TNG run with smaller softening, plus an inner-cutoff-free bar finder) and measure bar fraction and strength at $z=1$ for the same $z=0$-selected barred and unbarred populations; if the progenitors already differ in bar properties at $z=1$, the similar-at-$z=1$ claim fails. Separately, if a substantial population of massive unbarred galaxies with merger histories as quiet as those of barred galaxies turns up in independent simulations or in observed close-pair and tidal-debris counts, the claim that mergers dominate bar destruction above $\log(M_*/M_\odot)>10.8$ would be falsified.

Watch

Extended reading notes

Core claim

Using ellipse fitting and Fourier $A_2$ measurements on TNG100 and TNG50 disk galaxies, the paper finds that bar presence evolves after $z\sim1$ and is governed by different physics on either side of $\log(M_*/M_\odot)\approx10.8$. In massive systems, unbarred galaxies have experienced far more major mergers since $z\sim1$ and carry larger stellar halos and ex-situ mass fractions; about 60% of the local unbarred population once hosted a bar that was destroyed. In lower-mass systems, mergers are minor, and unbarred galaxies are instead the extended, less compact disks with higher two-component Toomre-Q values, where bar instability is suppressed even when rotation is high; barred galaxies follow a denser, earlier-assembling compact pathway. Short bars form at about the same epoch as normal bars but either contract or barely grow, and the simulations overproduce them, indicating that the central regions of TNG galaxies are insufficiently affected by mergers and gas inflows.

Load-bearing premise

The central assumption is that bar detection at $z=1$ and in TNG50, including the ad hoc 1.4 kpc inner cutoff motivated by an unexplained central ellipticity enhancement, does not systematically misclassify bars, and that the merger trees correctly recover the $z=0$ galaxies' progenitors.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

At the massive end, the $z=0$ bar fraction becomes a probe of recent merger history: disks with quiet merger histories stay barred, so a deficit of bars implies a violent assembly.
Since all $z=0$ disk populations look alike at $z=1$, the early formation stage does not preordain bar presence in this mass range; the discriminating physics happens between $z=1$ and $z=0$.
Low-mass unbarred galaxies need not have lost a bar; many are simply disks too extended and dynamically hot to go unstable, so environment and halo spin, not just mergers, set the unbarred population.
Short bars are a distinct population closer to unbarred galaxies in properties; measurements of the bar fraction in simulations should either exclude them or classify them separately to match observed S4G fractions.
The overproduction of short bars and the TNG50/TNG100 differences in central density point to resolution and subgrid effects in galaxy centers as limiting the fidelity of simulated bar sizes.

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

If bar survival in TNG tracks merger rate, the measured high-mass bar fraction could be turned around as an observational constraint on merger rates, by comparing TNG's bar fractions against merger-rate measurements from close pairs or tidal features.
The claim that about 60% of unbarred galaxies once hosted a bar implies that unbarred samples at $z=0$ are a mix of destroyed-bar and never-barred objects; future observational work could try to split them using kinematic or metallicity relics of a past bar.
The resolution-dependent difference in short-bar abundance suggests a testable numerical prediction: a higher-resolution rerun of TNG50 or zoom-in simulations with smaller softening should produce longer bars and a bar fraction closer to S4G.
The correlation between compactness and bar presence links bar formation to angular-momentum-driven mass-size relations, suggesting bar fraction could be predicted from halo spin and assembly time rather than from local disk conditions alone.

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Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, and a circularity audit.

Desk Editor's Note

read the letter

Bottom line: this is a careful, mostly convincing analysis of bar formation in TNG100 and TNG50, and it will be useful to anyone who works on bar statistics in simulations. The main contribution is the explicit comparison of evolutionary histories—bar fraction, strength, size, merger rates, and two-component Toomre-Q—for z=0 barred, short-bar, and unbarred galaxies split by stellar mass. The result that all three groups have statistically indistinguishable bar properties at z=1 is clean and striking, and the merger-driven destruction story for high-mass galaxies is well supported by major-merger histories and f_halo/ex-situ fractions. The short-bar analysis is a useful addition, and the public data release is a real asset.

The soft spots are mostly about framing rather than the underlying measurements. The stress-test concern about Toomre-Q at z=1 is real but not fatal. Because roughly half of each final sample already has a bar at z=1, the Q measured there is not a pristine initial condition; bars heat the disk and redistribute angular momentum, so Q can be altered by the very process the paper seeks to predict. That said, the final-barred and final-unbarred samples have similar bar fractions at z=1, so the Q offset is not simply a consequence of one group being more barred at that lookback time. The causal direction remains genuinely unclear, and the abstract's phrase 'generating unbarred disk galaxies' overstates what a z=1 snapshot can show. The paper would be stronger if it acknowledged this explicitly and either measured Q at higher redshift or restricted the causal claim to a subsample that is bar-free at z=1.

Other issues: the TNG50 1.4 kpc inner cutoff for bar sizes is ad hoc, though the agreement with Fourier decomposition is reassuring. The abstract's '60% in the local Universe' and 'all conclusions validated with TNG50' overreach—the statistics are from TNG100, and TNG50 has fewer, smaller galaxies. The 'similar at z=1' claim also lacks quantified uncertainty. And the many KS tests without multiple-testing corrections are fine for exploratory work, but the bolded p-values should be read with caution.

Who is this for? People working on bar fractions, the short-bar overproduction problem, or the physics of bar destruction in cosmological simulations. It deserves a serious referee: the analysis is sound enough to publish after revisions that tighten the causal language and the TNG50 correction. Send it to review.

Referee Report

3 major / 4 minor

Summary. This paper uses ellipse fitting and Fourier decomposition on TNG100 and TNG50 disk galaxies to compare barred, short-bar, and unbarred galaxies at z=0, tracing their evolution back to z=1. The central claims are that all z=0 disk galaxy progenitors show similar bar fractions and strengths at z=1; that for log(M*/M_sun)>10.8, mergers suppress or destroy bars; and that for log(M*/M_sun)<10.8, a larger two-component Toomre-Q parameter associated with a less compact nature prevents bar formation. The analysis also addresses the properties and evolution of short bars, which are found to resemble unbarred galaxies more than barred ones. The methodology combines KS tests of galaxy parameters, evolutionary tracks of individual galaxies, and comparisons between TNG100 and TNG50.

Significance. If correct, the paper offers a mass-dependent physical explanation for which disk galaxies end up barred, with mergers dominating in massive systems and internal disk responsiveness dominating in lower-mass systems. The authors are careful in several respects: they cross-check ellipse-fitting and Fourier bar measurements, they make the bar evolution catalog publicly available, they validate TNG100 results with TNG50, and they openly flag the TNG50 central ellipticity problem and the discrepancy with observed galaxy sizes. I do not see a definitional circularity: the bar properties and the galaxy parameters are measured independently. The main risks are the causal interpretation of the Toomre-Q comparison at z=1, when a large fraction of the final barred galaxies already have bars, and the reliance on an ad hoc TNG50 bar-size correction for the low-mass branch of the argument.

major comments (3)

[§6, Eq. (3), Fig. 11] The claim that a larger Toomre-Q at z=1 'generates' unbarred low-mass galaxies is not established by the present analysis. At z=1 the bar fraction is already about 0.5 for all final samples (Figs. 8 and 10), so the Q2comp profiles in Fig. 11 are measured after a sizable fraction of the final barred galaxies have already formed bars. Bars modify the stellar velocity dispersion and surface density, so Q2comp at z=1 is not a pristine initial condition; the lower Q2comp of the final barred sample may be a selection effect or a consequence of early bar formation rather than a pre-existing lack of responsiveness. The paper should measure Q2comp before bar formation, for example at z=2 or for galaxies that have no bar at z=1, or should explicitly show that the offset survives when all galaxies with bars at z=1 are removed. This is load-bearing for the low-mass branch of the central claim.
[§2.2.2, Figs. 1-2] The TNG50 bar measurements rely on an ad hoc 1.4 kpc inner cutoff for long bars, while short bars are measured using all radii, and the underlying central ellipticity enhancement in TNG50 is left unexplained. Because TNG50 is the only simulation used for the log(M*/M_sun)<10.6 mass range and for the left-hand panels of Fig. 11, a systematic misclassification of short bars or spurious detections caused by central ellipticity could bias the low-mass conclusions. The authors should quantify the sensitivity of their bar fractions and size measurements in TNG50 to this cutoff, for example by using Fourier-based bar sizes as an alternative, and should investigate the physical origin of the central ellipticity enhancement rather than treating it only as a fitting artifact.
[§4.2, §5.2, Figs. 8 and 10] The premise that all z=0 disk galaxy progenitors have 'similar bar features' at z=1 (abstract and Section 8, item 1) is asserted from overlapping medians without statistical quantification. No KS test, bootstrap confidence interval, or other uncertainty estimate is given for fbar, A2max, or Rbar at tLB=8 Gyr, and the sample is defined by z=0 populations traced through merger trees, whose completeness is not reported. Since the subsequent nature/nurture interpretation assumes equal initial bar conditions, the authors should provide a quantitative comparison of the z=1 bar properties and report the progenitor identification completeness. This is needed to make the 'similar at z=1' claim falsifiable.

minor comments (4)

[§7.2] There is a typo in 'Other subgrid physical processes may alse influence the size of bars'; 'alse' should be 'also'.
[Acknowledgements] 'Enterpreneurship' should be 'Entrepreneurship' in the acknowledgement of the XMU Training Program.
[§8] The sentence 'Additionally, we also study the evolution of both the Toomre-Q' is incomplete; it should read 'both the stellar and gaseous Toomre-Q parameters' or similar.
[Fig. 4 caption and §3.2] The text in §3.2 refers to p-values while the caption says the bracketed number gives the log p-value; please clarify consistently so readers do not misinterpret the reported significance levels.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged · score 2.0 of 10

No constructional circularity: bar classification, merger indicators, and Toomre-Q are measured independently, and the central claims rest on empirical comparisons rather than on self-referential definitions or fits.

full rationale

Walking the derivation chain, the paper's central results do not reduce to their inputs by definition. The z=0 samples are defined by bar presence, so the endpoints of the bar-fraction tracks in Figs. 8 and 10 are fixed by construction, but the substantive result is the common bar fraction (~0.5) at z=1, which is measured, not imposed. The mass-dependent conclusion (mergers suppress bars above log M*/M_sun = 10.8; higher Toomre-Q stabilizes lower-mass disks) is built from independent measurements: fhalo and fex situ are kinematic/ex-situ mass fractions, major-merger histories come from SUBLINK trees, and Q2comp is computed with the Romeo-Wiegert (2011) formula from stellar/gas surface densities and velocity dispersions. None of these quantities is fitted to the bar/unbarred labels. The K-S tests and evolutionary tracks are descriptive comparisons. There are numerous self-citations to prior work by the same group (Zhao et al. 2020; Du et al. 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024; Ma et al. 2024), and these supply the disk catalog, kinematic decomposition, and the 'compact evolutionary pathway' interpretive framework; however, the bar-vs-unbarred comparisons and Q profiles are computed here from TNG data and are externally checkable, so the self-citations are supporting rather than load-bearing reductions. The strongest inferential caveat is Section 6: Q2comp is evaluated at z=1 after a substantial fraction of galaxies already host bars, so the causal direction 'high Q generates unbarred galaxies' is not proven by this snapshot; bar heating could in principle alter Q. But that is a physical endogeneity/identification concern, not a definitional equivalence, and the direction of the reported offset (barred galaxies have lower Q) is opposite to a simple bar-heating artifact. The manuscript itself flags unresolved issues (TNG50 central ellipticity enhancement, overproduction of short bars, simulation-observation size discrepancy), none of which constitutes circular reasoning. I therefore find no constructional circularity.

Assumptions & free parameters 4 free parameters · 6 assumptions · 0 invented entities

The paper introduces no new physical entities and fits no model parameters. Its free parameters are analysis choices: the mass split, the TNG50 cutoff, and the bar duration thresholds. The key assumptions are the realism of the TNG simulations and the accuracy of the public merger trees and kinematic decompositions it reuses.

free parameters (4)

Mass boundary for nature/nurture split = log(M*/M_sun)=10.8
The sample is split at 10.8 after inspecting the KS test results, which show that merger-related parameters differ only above this mass. This is a post-hoc choice rather than a pre-registered threshold.
TNG50 inner fitting cutoff = 1.4 kpc
Adopted to bypass an unexplained central ellipticity enhancement in TNG50 when measuring bar sizes (Section 2.2.2). The cutoff changes the measured bar size and short-bar classification.
Bar detection thresholds = epsilon_max > 0.25, A2_max > 0.2, PA variation < 10 deg
These come from prior literature (Martinez-Valpuesta et al. 2006; Zhao et al. 2020), not fitted here, but they are free choices that determine the sample. Included for completeness.
Bar duration thresholds for 'had a bar' = 8 snapshots (main), 4-12 for limits
The fraction of unbarred galaxies that once had a bar depends on the minimum duration of bar detection (Section 7.1, Figure 14). The 60% number uses 8 snapshots, with limits from 4 and 12.

assumptions (6)

domain assumption IllustrisTNG subgrid physics (feedback, gas cooling, star formation) is realistic enough to reproduce the internal dynamics relevant to bar formation and destruction.
The entire analysis uses TNG100/TNG50 as a proxy for the real Universe; if the subgrid physics is wrong in a way that biases bar evolution, the conclusions do not transfer to real galaxies.
domain assumption The SUBFIND/SUBLINK merger trees correctly identify progenitor-descendant links and major mergers.
The evolutionary tracks (Figures 8, 10, 13) and merger histories (Figure 7) depend on the accuracy of the public TNG merger trees.
domain assumption The kinematic decomposition from Du et al. (2019, 2020) correctly separates stellar halo, bulge, and disk components, so fhalo is a valid proxy for merger influence.
The conclusion that bars are more likely in galaxies with smaller stellar halos relies on this decomposition.
domain assumption The galaxy selection criterion kappa_rot >= 0.5 within 30 kpc selects a disk population that is comparable to observed disk galaxies.
The sample is taken from Zhao et al. (2020) using this criterion; if it biases the sample, the barred/unbarred comparison is affected.
standard math The two-component Toomre-Q formula of Romeo & Wiegert (2011) is a valid stability indicator for the simulated disks.
Used in Section 6 to compare dynamical temperatures; this is a standard approximate formula.
ad hoc to paper The mass split at log(M*/M_sun)=10.8 is a legitimate, physically meaningful boundary rather than an artifact of the sample.
The split is introduced after the KS tests to separate the two regimes; it is not derived from theory or pre-registered.

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Cite this review

Pith. "Pith review of IllustrisTNG Insights: Factors Affecting the Presence of Bars in Disk Galaxies." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/BF3GOGC5

@misc{pith2026241202255,
  author       = {Pith},
  title        = {Pith review of: IllustrisTNG Insights: Factors Affecting the Presence of Bars in Disk Galaxies},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/BF3GOGC5}},
  note         = {Machine review of arXiv:2412.02255}
}

abstract

Bars are important in the secular evolution of galaxies. This study is aimed at exploring the reasons why some galaxies have bars at redshift $z=0$ while others do not. We use ellipse fitting to measure the properties and evolution of bars in the IllustrisTNG cosmological simulation. By using the K-S two-sample test and tracing their evolutionary changes, we analyze the parameter differences between barred and unbarred galaxies. The properties of galaxies with short bars are also studied. When tracing all disk galaxies at $z=0$ back to $z=1$, all of them show similar bar features at $z=1$. The fraction of bars increases in barred and short-bar galaxies but decreases in unbarred galaxies during $z=1-0$. In the case of disk galaxies with stellar mass log$(M_*/M_\odot)> 10.8$, nurture (mainly mergers) plays the most important role in suppressing or destroying bars. Bars are more likely to endure in galaxies that experience fewer mergers, which can be quantified by smaller stellar halos and ex-situ mass fractions. Approximately 60\% of the unbarred galaxies in the local Universe once had a bar. In contrast, the lack of responsiveness to bar instabilities (a larger Toomre-Q parameter) due to a less compact nature plays an important role in generating unbarred disk galaxies with stellar mass log$(M_*/M_\odot)<10.8$. Moreover, short bars generally form at a similar time to normal bars, during which they either grow mildly or contract significantly. The fact that IllustrisTNG simulations produce too many galaxies with short bars indicates that the dynamical properties of the central regions in IllustrisTNG galaxies are less affected by external factors, such as mergers and gas inflows.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2412.02255 by the authors.

**Figure 1.** Examples of ellipse fitting and Fourier decomposition of barred galaxies (top row) and unbarred galaxies (bottom row) in [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p003_1.png] view at source ↗

**Figure 2.** Comparison of bar sizes measured by Fourier decomposition (x-axis) and ellipse fitting (y-axis) for TNG50 (left panel) and [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p004_2.png] view at source ↗

**Figure 3.** Variations of bar fraction, fbar, (upper) and distributions of bar size, Rbar, (lower) with stellar mass M∗,30kpc for galaxies in TNG100 (blue) and TNG50 (red). In the bottom panel, the cyan shaded region represents the 3σ scatter range of bar sizes in the S4G survey (Erwin 2018). The black dotted line shows the best-fit relationship between bar size and stellar mass for the S 4G sample (Erwin 2019). The green dashe… view at source ↗

Figures from the paper (10 more)

**Figure 4.** Figure 4: Results of the KS test (right) and Pearson correlation coe [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p007_4.png]

**Figure 5.** Figure 5: Distributions of fhalo, Re, κrot, and sSFR in barred (red), short-bar (green), and unbarred (blue) galaxies in TNG100. The lower and upper panels show relatively less massive and more massive galaxies, respectively. The dashed lines of the corresponding color indicate …

**Figure 6.** Figure 6: Variation of fex situ with the mass of the barred (red), short-bar (green), and unbarred (blue) galaxies at z = 0 in TNG50 (colored region) and TNG100 (points with error bars). The solid lines and the points represent the median values whose colored regions and error b…

**Figure 8.** Figure 8: Evolution of the bar characteristics (left column) in massive barred (red), short-bar (green), and unbarred (blue) galaxies [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p009_8.png]

**Figure 9.** Figure 9: Variation of Re with the mass of the barred (red), shortbar (green), and unbarred (blue) galaxies at z = 0 in TNG50 (colored regions) and TNG100 (points with error bars). The solid lines and the points represent the median values, with colored regions and error bars i…

**Figure 10.** Figure 10: Evolution of the bar characteristics (left column) in relatively less massive barred (red), short-bar (green), and unbarred [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p011_10.png]

**Figure 11.** Figure 11: Evolution of the radial profiles of two-component disk stability parameter ( [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p012_11.png]

**Figure 12.** Figure 12: Radial profiles of stellar surface density for barred [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p013_12.png]

**Figure 13.** Figure 13: Evolutionary history of bar size (color) for barred (left column), short-bar (middle column), and unbarred (right column) [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p014_13.png]

**Figure 14.** Figure 14: Evolutionary features of bars as a function of galaxy [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p015_14.png]

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

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Pith tools

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