The Nature of Star Formation within Bars

The presence and nature of galaxy bars is in close connection to all secularily built structures. Understanding the formation and evolution of bars furthers our knowledge about their impact on and interplay with co-existing secular galaxy components such as galactic rings. Various authors have observed a lack of star formation within the bar region of some barred disc galaxies, while other galaxies show significant star formation in their bars. The absence of star formation can theoretically be explained by shear. Gas clouds that are travelling along the bar are subject to a velocity gradient perpendicular to the bar mayor axis. The resulting shear can disrupt the clouds and prevent them to collapse and form stars. With this poster, I would like to show how 3D spectroscopy can be used to connect spectroscopic parameters with photometric properties in order to study how star formation can be inhibited in some galaxy bars. We use spatially resolved H_alpha flux from VLT/MUSE observations of 16 nearby barred galaxies together with a detailed two-dimensional photometric image decomposition to explore how the absence and presence of star formation within the bar is connected to structural properties of the bar and the host galaxy.