When bars form within galaxy formation simulations in the standard cosmological context, dynamical friction with dark matter (DM) causes them to rotate rather slowly. However, almost all observed galactic bars are fast in terms of the ratio between corotation radius and bar length. Here, we explicitly display an 8σ tension between the observed distribution of this ratio and that in the EAGLE simulation at redshift 0. We also compare the evolution of Newtonian galactic discs embedded in DM haloes to their evolution in three extended gravity theories: Milgromian Dynamics (MOND), a model of non-local gravity, and a scalar-tensor-vector gravity theory (MOG). Although our models start with the same initial baryonic distribution and rotation curve, the long-term evolution is different. The bar instability happens more violently in MOND compared to the other models. There are some common features between the extended gravity models, in particular the negligible role played by dynamical friction − which plays a key role in the DM model. Partly for this reason, all extended gravity models predict weaker bars and faster bar pattern speeds compared to the DM case. Although the absence of strong bars in our idealized, isolated extended gravity simulations is in tension with observations, they reproduce the strong observational preference for ‘fast’ bar pattern speeds, which we could not do with DM. We confirm previous findings that apparently ‘ultrafast’ bars can be due to bar-spiral arm alignment leading to an overestimated bar length, especially in extended gravity scenarios where the bar is already fast.

Many observed disc galaxies harbour a central bar. In the standard cosmological paradigm, galactic bars should be slowed down by dynamical friction from the dark matter halo. This friction depends on the galaxy’s physical properties in a complex way, making it impossible to formulate analytically. Fortunately, cosmological hydrodynamical simulations provide an excellent statistical population of galaxies, letting us quantify how simulated galactic bars evolve within dark matter haloes. We measure bar lengths and pattern speeds in barred galaxies in state-of-the-art cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the IllustrisTNG and EAGLE projects, using techniques similar to those used observationally. We then compare our results with the largest available observational sample at z = 0. We show that the tension between these simulations and observations in the ratio of corotation radius to bar length is 12.62σ (TNG50), 13.56σ (TNG100), 2.94σ (EAGLE50), and 9.69σ (EAGLE100), revealing for the first time that the significant tension reported previously persists in the recently released TNG50. The lower statistical tension in EAGLE50 is actually caused by it only having 5 galaxies suitable for our analysis, but all four simulations give similar statistics for the bar pattern speed distribution. In addition, the fraction of disc galaxies with bars is similar between TNG50 and TNG100, though somewhat above EAGLE100. The simulated bar fraction and its trend with stellar mass both differ greatly from observations. These dramatic disagreements cast serious doubt on whether galaxies actually have massive cold dark matter haloes, with their associated dynamical friction acting on galactic bars.

We study the global stability of a self-gravitating disc in the context of Modified Gravity (MOG) using N-body simulations. This theory is a relativistic scalar-tensorvector theory of gravity and presented to address the dark matter problem. In the weak field limit MOG possesses two free parameters α and µ 0 which have been already determined using rotation curve data of spiral galaxies. The evolution of a stellar selfgravitating disc and more specifically the bar instability in MOG is investigated and compared to a Newtonian case. Our models have exponential and Mestel-like surface densities as Σ ∝ exp(−r/h) and Σ ∝ 1/r. It is found out that, surprisingly, the discs are more stable against the bar mode in MOG than in Newtonian gravity. In other words, the bar growth rate is effectively slower than the Newtonian discs. Also we show that both free parameters, i.e. α and µ 0 , have stabilising effects. In other words, increase in these parameters will decrease the bar growth rate.

The local stability of stellar and fluid discs, under a new modified dynamical model, is surveyed by using WKB approximation. The exact form of the modified Toomre criterion is derived for both types of systems and it is shown that the new model is, in all situations, more locally stable than Newtonian model. In addition, it has been proved that the central surface density of the galaxies plays an important role in the local stability in the sense that LSB galaxies are more stable than HSBs. Furthermore, the growth rate in the new model is found to be lower than the Newtonian one. We found that, according to this model, the local instability is related to the ratio of surface density of the disc to a critical surface density Σ crit . We provide observational evidence to support this result based on star formation rate in HSBs and LSBs.

The evolution of disk galaxies in modified gravity is studied by using high-resolution N-body simulations. More specifically, we use the weak field limit of two modified gravity theories, that is, nonlocal gravity and scalar–tensor–vector gravity, known as MOG, and ignore the existence of a dark matter (DM) halo. We construct the same models as in the standard DM model and compare their dynamics with the galactic models in modified gravity. It turns out that there are serious differences between galactic models in these different viewpoints. For example, we explicitly show that the galactic models in modified gravity host faster bars compared to the DM case, but the final stellar bars are weaker in modified gravity. These facts are not new and have already been reported in our previous simulations for exponential galactic models. Therefore, our main purpose is to show that the above-mentioned differences, with an emphasis on the speed of the bars, are independent of the initial density profile of the adopted disk and halo. To do so, we employ different profiles for the disk and halo and show that the results remain qualitatively independent of the initial galactic models. Moreover, a more accurate method has been used to quantify the kinematic properties of the stellar bars. Our results imply that, contrary to the DM models, bars in modified gravity are fast rotators that never leave the fast-bar region until the end of the simulation.

We conduct hydrodynamical MOND simulations of isolated disc galaxies over the stellar mass range M⋆/M⊙ = 107 − 1011 using the adaptive mesh refinement code phantom of ramses (por), an adaptation of the ramses code with a Milgromian gravity solver. The scale lengths and gas fractions are based on observed galaxies, and the simulations are run for 5 Gyr. The main aim is to see whether existing sub-grid physics prescriptions for star formation and stellar feedback reproduce the observed main sequence, and Kennicutt-Schmidt relation that captures how the local and global star formation rates relate to other properties. Star formation in the models starts soon after initialisation and continues as the models evolve. The initialized galaxies indeed evolve to a state which is on the observed main sequence, and the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. The available formulation of sub-grid physics is therefore adequate and leads to galaxies that largely behave like observed galaxies, grow in radius, and have flat rotation curves − provided we use Milgromian gravitation. Furthermore, the strength of the bars tends to be inversely correlated with the stellar mass of the galaxy, whereas the bar length strongly correlates with the stellar mass. Irrespective of the mass, the bar pattern speed stays constant with time, indicating that dynamical friction does not affect the bar dynamics. The models demonstrate Renzo’s rule and form structures at large radii, much as in real galaxies. In this framework, baryonic physics is thus sufficiently understood to not pose major uncertainties in our modelling of global galaxy properties.

Evolution and the formation of bars in the galactic disks is studied in the context of Modified Gravity (MOG) by using N-body simulations. It is found that changing the value of free parameters of the model can effectively alter the strength of the bar and disk’s stability.