A LARGE-SCALE SHOCK SURROUNDING A POWERFUL RADIO GALAXY?

Journal Article · Mon Jun 20 04:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/734/2/L28· OSTI ID:21562596

Croston, J H ^[1]; Hardcastle, M J; Mingo, B ^[2]; Evans, D A ^[3]; Dicken, D ^[4]; Morganti, R ^[5]

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1. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ (United Kingdom)
2. School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB (United Kingdom)
3. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology, 84 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623 (United States)
5. Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Postbus 2, 7990 AA, Dwingeloo (Netherlands)

We report Chandra evidence for a 200 kpc scale shock in the cluster surrounding the powerful radio galaxy 3C 444. Our 20 ks observation allows us to identify a clear surface brightness drop around the outer edge of the radio galaxy, which is likely to correspond to a spheroidal shock propagating into the intracluster medium. We measure a temperature jump across this drop of a factor {approx}1.7, which corresponds to a Mach number of {approx}1.7. This is likely to be an underestimate due to the need to average over fairly large regions. We also detect clear cavities corresponding to the positions of the radio lobes, which is only the second such detection associated with an FRII radio galaxy. We estimate that the total energy transferred to the environment is >8.2 x 10{sup 60} erg, corresponding to a jet power >2.9 x 10{sup 45} erg s{sup -1}. Our results suggest that energy input from FRII radio galaxies is likely to exceed substantially estimates based on cluster cavity scaling relations.

• OSTI ID: 21562596
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 734; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
BRIGHTNESS
CAVITIES
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
ENERGY TRANSFER
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
RADIO GALAXIES
SCALING