The Frequency of Barred Spiral Galaxies in the Near-Infrared

We have determined the fraction of barred galaxies in the H-band for astatistically well-defined sample of 186 spirals drawn from the Ohio StateUniversity Bright Spiral Galaxy survey. We find 56% of our sample to bestrongly barred at H, while another 16% is weakly barred. Only 27% of oursample is unbarred in the near-infrared. The RC3 and the Carnegie Atlas ofGalaxies both classify only about 30% of our sample as strongly barred. Thusstrong bars are nearly twice as prevalent in the near-infrared as in theoptical. The frequency of genuine optically hidden bars is significant, butlower than many claims in the literature: 40% of the galaxies in our samplethat are classified as unbarred in the RC3 show evidence for a bar in theH-band, while for the Carnegie Atlas this fraction is 66%. Our data reveal nosignificant trend in bar fraction as a function of morphology in either theoptical or H-band. Optical surveys of high redshift galaxies may be stronglybiased against finding bars, as bars are increasingly difficult to detect atbluer rest wavelengths