REVISITING SCALING RELATIONS FOR GIANT RADIO HALOS IN GALAXY CLUSTERS

Journal Article · Sun Nov 10 04:00:00 EST 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/777/2/141· OSTI ID:22270562

Cassano, R.; Brunetti, G.; Venturi, T.; Kale, R. ^[1]; Ettori, S. ^[2]; Giacintucci, S. ^[3]; Pratt, G. W. ^[4]; Dolag, K. ^[5]; Markevitch, M. ^[6]

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1. INAF/IRA, via Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna (Italy)
2. INAF/Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy)
3. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2421 (United States)
4. Laboratoire AIM, IRFU/Service dAstrophysique-CEA/DSM-CNRS-Université Paris Diderot, Bât. 709, CEA-Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex (France)
5. University Observatory Munich, Scheinerstr. 1, D-81679 Munich (Germany)
6. Astrophysics Science Division, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)

Many galaxy clusters host megaparsec-scale radio halos, generated by ultrarelativistic electrons in the magnetized intracluster medium. Correlations between the synchrotron power of radio halos and the thermal properties of the hosting clusters were established in the last decade, including the connection between the presence of a halo and cluster mergers. The X-ray luminosity and redshift-limited Extended GMRT Radio Halo Survey provides a rich and unique dataset for statistical studies of the halos. We uniformly analyze the radio and X-ray data for the GMRT cluster sample, and use the new Planck Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) catalog to revisit the correlations between the power of radio halos and the thermal properties of galaxy clusters. We find that the radio power at 1.4 GHz scales with the cluster X-ray (0.1-2.4 keV) luminosity computed within R{sub 500} as P{sub 1.4}∼L{sup 2.1±0.2}{sub 500}. Our bigger and more homogenous sample confirms that the X-ray luminous (L{sub 500} > 5 × 10{sup 44} erg s{sup –1}) clusters branch into two populations—radio halos lie on the correlation, while clusters without radio halos have their radio upper limits well below that correlation. This bimodality remains if we excise cool cores from the X-ray luminosities. We also find that P{sub 1.4} scales with the cluster integrated SZ signal within R{sub 500}, measured by Planck, as P{sub 1.4}∼Y{sup 2.05±0.28}{sub 500}, in line with previous findings. However, contrary to previous studies that were limited by incompleteness and small sample size, we find that 'SZ-luminous' Y{sub 500} > 6 × 10{sup –5} Mpc{sup 2} clusters show a bimodal behavior for the presence of radio halos, similar to that in the radio-X-ray diagram. Bimodality of both correlations can be traced to clusters dynamics, with radio halos found exclusively in merging clusters. These results confirm the key role of mergers for the origin of giant radio halos, suggesting that they trigger the relativistic particle acceleration.

• OSTI ID: 22270562
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 777; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ASTROPHYSICS
CORRELATIONS
COSMIC ELECTRONS
COSMIC RADIO SOURCES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
GHZ RANGE
KEV RANGE
LUMINOSITY
RADIOASTRONOMY
RED SHIFT
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
X RADIATION
X-RAY GALAXIES