Barred disks in dense environments

We investigate the properties of bright barred and unbarred disks in the Abell 901/902 cluster system at z ∼ 0.165 with the STAGES HST ACS survey. We find that the global optical bar fraction in the clusters is ∼ 30% regardless of the method of disk selection. Within a given absolute magnitude bin, the bar fraction increases for galaxies with no significant bulge component. Within each morphological type bin, the bar fraction increases for brighter galaxies. We find no strong trend for the bar fraction with local density within the cluster between the core and virial radius. We discuss the implications of our results for the evolution of bars and disks in dense environments.