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Session 10 - AGN - Host Galaxies & Environment.
Display session, Monday, January 13
Metropolitan Ballroom,
Galactic bars are frequently invoked as a candidate for facilitating the transfer of mass from the interstellar medium of active galaxies to their central engines. However, studies of large Seyfert samples show little evidence that Seyferts occur preferentially in barred systems. The failure to find evidence for bars in many Seyfert galaxies may be due to the fact that most studies have concentrated on optical wavelengths where the presence of extinction or a young stellar population might mask any bar structures. In contrast, the near-infrared is expected to be a good place to study the host galaxy of Seyferts because neither dust nor young stars strongly affect the observed emission at these wavelengths. To study the role bars play in the fueling of active galaxies, we have obtained K' images of a large sample of nearby Seyfert and \lq\lq normal\rq\rq \ galaxies, matched in redshift, Hubble type, inclination and blue luminosity. We use these images to compare the incidence of bars in Seyfert and normal galaxies and constrain the importance of bars in the fueling of nuclear activity.
