  Earlier studies have shown that massive bulges impede bar formation in disk
galaxies. Recent N-body simulations have derived a bar formation criterion that
depends on the radial bulge force in a galaxy disk. We use those simulations to
show that bars can form only when the force constant FB < 0.13, where FB
depends on the ratio of the bulge force to the total force of the galaxy at
twice the disk scale length 2R d . In this article, we test this theoretical
prediction using observational data obtained from the literature. Our sample
consists of 63 barred galaxies with a wide range of Hubble classes from the S 4
G catalogue for which bulge, disk and bar decomposition has been done. We find
that 92 % of our sample galaxies satisfy the condition FB < 0.13 for bar
formation in galaxies and hence agree with the bar formation criterion given by
the simulations.
