We explore properties of barred active spiral galaxies in groups selected
from the SDSS-DR7, with the aim of assessing the effects of bars on AGN and the
role of the high density environment. We identified barred active galaxies that
reside in groups from SDSS-DR7 group catalog. To provide a suitable
quantification of the effects of bars, a reliable control sample of unbarred
active galaxies in high density environments with similar redshift, magnitude,
morphology, and bulge size distributions was constructed. We found that the
fraction of barred AGN galaxies in groups (~ 38 %) is higher than those in the
total barred AGN sample ( ~ 28 %), indicating that AGN spiral galaxies in
groups are more likely to be barred than those in the field. We also found that
barred AGN galaxies are more concentrated towards the group centers than the
other unbarred AGN group members. In addition, barred AGN host galaxies show an
excess of population dominated by red colors suggesting that bars produce an
importanteffect on galaxy colors of AGN hosts. The host groups of the barred
AGN exhibit a larger fraction of red colors than the host groups of the
corresponding unbarred active galaxies. Color-magnitude relations of both host
groups of AGN differ significantly: the host group colors of barred active
galaxies display distributions spreading toward red populations, with respect
to the host groups of the unbarred AGN objects. Barred active galaxies show an
excess of nuclear activity compared to galaxies without bars. We found that
barred active galaxies located farther from the group-center have stronger
Lum[OIII]. Our findings suggest that the efficiency of bars to transport
material towards the more central regions of the AGN galaxies in high density
environments reveals an important dependence on the localization of objects
within the group and on the host group colors.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for Astronomy & Astrophysic
