The phase-space of tailed radio galaxies in massive clusters

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: van der Jagt, Stefan, Osinga, Erik, van Weeren, Reinout J., Miley, George K., Roberts, Ian D., Botteon, Andrea, Ignesti, Alessandro
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author van der Jagt, Stefan
Osinga, Erik
van Weeren, Reinout J.
Miley, George K.
Roberts, Ian D.
Botteon, Andrea
Ignesti, Alessandro
author_facet van der Jagt, Stefan
Osinga, Erik
van Weeren, Reinout J.
Miley, George K.
Roberts, Ian D.
Botteon, Andrea
Ignesti, Alessandro
contents The radio jets of radio galaxies in galaxy clusters are often bent due to the ram pressure of the intracluster medium. In this paper we start with a well-defined sample of galaxy clusters and subsequently identifying tailed radio sources in these known environments. Our sample consists of 81 galaxy clusters from the Planck ESZ cluster sample. We present a catalogue of 127 extended cluster radio sources, including brightest cluster galaxies, obtained by visually inspecting Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (1-2 GHz) observations. We have determined the bending angle of 109 well-structured sources, and classified them accordingly: 84 narrow-angle tailed sources (NATs), 16 wide-angle tailed sources (WATs), and 9 non-bent radio sources. We find a negative correlation between the bending angle and the distance to the cluster centre (impact radius), and we observe that NATs generally have smaller impact radii than the regular galaxy population and WATs. We present a phase-space diagram of tailed radio galaxy velocities and impact radii and find that NATs have a significant excess in the high-velocity and low-impact radius region of phase space, indicating they undergo the largest amount of ram pressure bending. We compared the results from our sample with those for jellyfish galaxies, and suggest that the mechanism responsible for bending the radio tails is similar to the stripping of gas in jellyfish galaxies, although tailed radio galaxies are more concentrated in the centre of the phase space. Finally, we find that NATs and WATs have the same occurrence ratio in merging and relaxed clusters. However, their distribution in the phase-space is significantly different. We report an excess of NATs in the high-velocity and low-impact-radius phase-space region in merging clusters, and an excess of relaxed clusters in the low-velocity and low-impact-radius region.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17334
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The phase-space of tailed radio galaxies in massive clusters
van der Jagt, Stefan
Osinga, Erik
van Weeren, Reinout J.
Miley, George K.
Roberts, Ian D.
Botteon, Andrea
Ignesti, Alessandro
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
The radio jets of radio galaxies in galaxy clusters are often bent due to the ram pressure of the intracluster medium. In this paper we start with a well-defined sample of galaxy clusters and subsequently identifying tailed radio sources in these known environments. Our sample consists of 81 galaxy clusters from the Planck ESZ cluster sample. We present a catalogue of 127 extended cluster radio sources, including brightest cluster galaxies, obtained by visually inspecting Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (1-2 GHz) observations. We have determined the bending angle of 109 well-structured sources, and classified them accordingly: 84 narrow-angle tailed sources (NATs), 16 wide-angle tailed sources (WATs), and 9 non-bent radio sources. We find a negative correlation between the bending angle and the distance to the cluster centre (impact radius), and we observe that NATs generally have smaller impact radii than the regular galaxy population and WATs. We present a phase-space diagram of tailed radio galaxy velocities and impact radii and find that NATs have a significant excess in the high-velocity and low-impact radius region of phase space, indicating they undergo the largest amount of ram pressure bending. We compared the results from our sample with those for jellyfish galaxies, and suggest that the mechanism responsible for bending the radio tails is similar to the stripping of gas in jellyfish galaxies, although tailed radio galaxies are more concentrated in the centre of the phase space. Finally, we find that NATs and WATs have the same occurrence ratio in merging and relaxed clusters. However, their distribution in the phase-space is significantly different. We report an excess of NATs in the high-velocity and low-impact-radius phase-space region in merging clusters, and an excess of relaxed clusters in the low-velocity and low-impact-radius region.
title The phase-space of tailed radio galaxies in massive clusters
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17334