The HI Morphology and Stellar Properties of Strongly Barred Galaxies:
  support for bar quenching in massive spirals
  Galactic bars can affect the evolution of galaxies by redistributing gas in
galaxies, possibly contributing to the cessation of star formation. Recent
works point to 'bar quenching' playing an important role in massive disk
galaxies like the Milky Way.
  We construct the largest ever sample of gas rich and strongly barred disc
galaxies with resolved HI observations making use of both the Giant Meter Radio
Telescope (GMRT) and the Karl Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to collect data.
This sample, called HIRB (HI Rich Barred) galaxies, were identified with Galaxy
Zoo - to find galaxies hosting a strong bar, and the Arecibo Legacy Fast
Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFALFA) blind HI survey- to identify a high HI
content.
  We measure gas fractions, HI morphology and kinematics in each galaxy, and
use archival optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to reveal
star-formation histories and bar properties. HIRB galaxies presented here
support a picture where bar quenching is playing, or will play an important
role in their evolution. They also support models which show how the presence
of cold gas delays and slows the development of strong bars. The galaxies with
the lowest gas fractions (still high for their mass) show clear HI holes,
dynamical advanced bars and low star formation rates, those with the highest
gas fractions show little impact from their bar on the HI morphology, and are
actively star-forming. How such unusual galaxies came to be is an open
question.
  Several of the HIRBs have local gas rich companions. Tidal interactions with
these lower mass galaxies could result in an early triggering of the bar and/or
accretion of HI between them. The role of environment in the evolution of the
HIRB galaxies will be explored in a future paper.
