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Title: Alma observations of massive molecular gas filaments encasing radio bubbles in the Phoenix cluster

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [1]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [6]; ORCiD logo [7];  [8]; ORCiD logo [9]; ORCiD logo [10]; ORCiD logo [11]; ORCiD logo [12]; ORCiD logo [13]
  1. Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON (Canada); Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, ON (Canada)
  4. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States); Univ. of Western Australia, Crawley, WA (Australia)
  5. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Colby College, Waterville, ME (United States)
  6. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
  7. Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City, MO (United States)
  8. Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
  9. Durham Univ., Durham (United Kingdom)
  10. Univ. de Montreal, Montreal, QC (Canada)
  11. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  12. Univ. of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC (Australia)
  13. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)

We report new ALMA observations of the CO(3-2) line emission from the $$2.1\pm0.3\times10^{10}\rm\thinspace M_{\odot}$$ molecular gas reservoir in the central galaxy of the Phoenix cluster. The cold molecular gas is fuelling a vigorous starburst at a rate of $$500-800\rm\thinspace M_{\odot}\rm\; yr^{-1}$$ and powerful black hole activity in the form of both intense quasar radiation and radio jets. The radio jets have inflated huge bubbles filled with relativistic plasma into the hot, X-ray atmospheres surrounding the host galaxy. The ALMA observations show that extended filaments of molecular gas, each $$10-20\rm\; kpc$$ long with a mass of several billion solar masses, are located along the peripheries of the radio bubbles. The smooth velocity gradients and narrow line widths along each filament reveal massive, ordered molecular gas flows around each bubble, which are inconsistent with gravitational free-fall. The molecular clouds have been lifted directly by the radio bubbles, or formed via thermal instabilities induced in low entropy gas lifted in the updraft of the bubbles. These new data provide compelling evidence for close coupling between the radio bubbles and the cold gas, which is essential to explain the self-regulation of feedback. As a result, the very feedback mechanism that heats hot atmospheres and suppresses star formation may also paradoxically stimulate production of the cold gas required to sustain feedback in massive galaxies.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1353468
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1611.00017; FERMILAB-PUB-16-672-AE; 1594856
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 836, Issue 1; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 58 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Radially-Inflowing Molecular Gas in NGC 1275 Deposited by a X-ray Cooling Flow in the Perseus Cluster text January 2007
Observations of CO in the eastern filaments of NGC 1275 text January 2008
Magnetic support of the optical emission line filaments in NGC 1275 text January 2008
A very extended molecular web around NGC 1275 text January 2011
Turbulent and fast motions of H2 gas in active galactic nuclei text January 2011
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Constraining Gas Motions in the Intra-Cluster Medium journal February 2019
The VLT/MUSE view of the central galaxy in Abell 2052: Ionized gas swept by the expanding radio source★ journal April 2018
Cold gas in a complete sample of group-dominant early-type galaxies journal October 2018
Ubiquitous cold and massive filaments in cool core clusters journal October 2019
Dense gas formation and destruction in a simulated Perseus-like galaxy cluster with spin-driven black hole feedback journal October 2019
Close entrainment of massive molecular gas flows by radio bubbles in the central galaxy of Abell 1795 journal September 2017
AGN feedback in the Phoenix cluster journal August 2018
The requirement for mixing-heating to utilize bubble cosmic rays to heat the intracluster medium journal October 2018
Multiwavelength radio observations of a brightest cluster galaxy at z = 1.71: detection of a modest active galactic nucleus and evidence for extended star formation journal May 2019
Building a cluster: shocks, cavities, and cooling filaments in the group–group merger NGC 6338 journal June 2019
Driving massive molecular gas flows in central cluster galaxies with AGN feedback journal September 2019
The Many Routes to AGN Feedback journal November 2017
Extended X-Ray Study of M49: The Frontier of the Virgo Cluster journal June 2019
Unifying the Micro and Macro Properties of AGN Feeding and Feedback journal March 2017
IC 630: Piercing the Veil of the Nuclear Gas journal March 2017
The Origin of Molecular Clouds in Central Galaxies journal February 2018
Broadband Radio Polarimetry of Fornax A. I. Depolarized Patches Generated by Advected Thermal Material from NGC 1316 journal March 2018
Revolutionizing Our Understanding of AGN Feedback and its Importance to Galaxy Evolution in the Era of the Next Generation Very Large Array journal May 2018
Cool-core Clusters: The Role of BCG, Star Formation, and AGN-driven Turbulence journal August 2018
Molecular Gas Filaments and Star-forming Knots Beneath an X-Ray Cavity in RXC J1504–0248 journal August 2018
A Galaxy-scale Fountain of Cold Molecular Gas Pumped by a Black Hole journal September 2018
An Enormous Molecular Gas Flow in the RX J0821+0752 Galaxy Cluster journal January 2019
Resolving CO (2−1) in z ∼ 1.6 Gas-rich Cluster Galaxies with ALMA: Rotating Molecular Gas Disks with Possible Signatures of Gas Stripping journal January 2019
Revealing a Highly Dynamic Cluster Core in Abell 1664 with Chandra journal April 2019
The Interplay of Kinetic and Radiative Feedback in Galaxy Clusters journal May 2019
The Dust and Molecular Gas in the Brightest Cluster Galaxy in MACS 1931.8-2635 journal July 2019
The First Astrophysical Result of Hisaki: A Search for the EUV He Lines in a Massive Cool Core Cluster at z = 0.7 journal August 2019
The ALMA Discovery of the Rotating Disk and Fast Outflow of Cold Molecular Gas in NGC 1275 journal October 2019
The Cold Circumgalactic Environment of MAMMOTH-I: Dynamically Cold Gas in the Core of an Enormous Ly α Nebula journal December 2019
Anatomy of a Cooling Flow: The Feedback Response to Pure Cooling in the Core of the Phoenix Cluster journal October 2019
Origins of Molecular Clouds in Early-type Galaxies journal December 2019
AGN feedback in the Phoenix cluster text January 2018
Close entrainment of massive molecular gas flows by radio bubbles in the central galaxy of Abell 1795 journalarticle January 2017
IC 630: Piercing the Veil of the Nuclear Gas text January 2017
The Origin of Molecular Clouds In Central Galaxies text January 2017
The Many Routes to AGN Feedback text January 2017
Molecular gas filaments and star-forming knots beneath an X-ray cavity in RXC J1504-0248 text January 2018
On the requirement for mixing-heating to utilize bubble cosmic rays to heat the intracluster medium text January 2018
Revealing a Highly-Dynamic Cluster Core in Abell 1664 with Chandra text January 2018
Constraining Gas Motions in the Intra-Cluster Medium text January 2019
Ubiquitous cold and massive filaments in cool core clusters text January 2019
Driving massive molecular gas flows in central cluster galaxies with AGN feedback text January 2019
The Dust and Molecular Gas in the Brightest Cluster Galaxy in MACS 1931.8-2635 text January 2019
Multiwavelength radio observations of a Brightest Cluster Galaxy at z=1.71: Detection of a modest Active Galactic Nucleus and evidence for extended star formation text January 2019
Building a cluster: shocks, cavities, and cooling filaments in the group-group merger NGC 6338 text January 2019
The first astrophysical result of HISAKI: a search for the EUV He I lines a massive cool core cluster at z=0.7 text January 2019
Dense gas formation and destruction in a simulated Perseus-like galaxy cluster with spin-driven black hole feedback text January 2019

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