Abstract
We have studied the host-galaxy morphologies of narrow- and broad-line Seyfert 1 galaxies (NLS1s and BLS1s) based on broad-band optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope archives. We find that large-scale stellar bars, spanning 1-10 kpc from the nucleus, are much more common in NLS1s than BLS1s. Furthermore, the fraction of NLS1 spirals that have bars increases with decreasing full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the broad component of HΒ. This suggests a link between the large-scale bars, which can support high fueling rates to the inner kpc, and the high mass-accretion rates associated with the supermassive black holes in NLS1s. A preliminary examination of the inner (<1 kpc) dust morphologies has revealed no significant differences between NLS1s and BLS1s, except that we confirm the previous finding that galaxies with large-scale bars have a much higher frequency of "grand design" nuclear dust spirals. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]