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Register a new userThe Dust and Molecular Gas in the Brightest Cluster Galaxy in MACS 1931.8-2635
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We present new ALMA observations of the molecular gas and far-infrared continuum around the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) in the cool-core cluster MACS 1931.8-2635. Our observations reveal $1.9 pm 0.3 times 10^{10}$ M$_{odot}$ of molecular gas, on par with the largest known reservoirs of cold gas in a cluster core. We detect CO(1-0), CO(3-2), and CO(4-3) emission from both diffuse and compact molecular gas components that extend from the BCG center out to $sim30$ kpc to the northwest, tracing the UV knots and H$alpha$ filaments observed by HST. Due to the lack of morphological symmetry, we hypothesize that the $sim300$ km s$^{-1}$ velocity of the CO in the tail is not due to concurrent uplift by AGN jets, rather we may be observing the aftermath of a recent AGN outburst. The CO spectral line energy distribution suggests that molecular gas excitation is influenced by processes related to both star formation and recent AGN feedback. Continuum emission in Bands 6 and 7 arises from dust and is spatially coincident with young stars and nebular emission observed in the UV and optical. We constrain the temperature of several dust clumps to be $lesssim 10$ K, which is too cold to be directly interacting with the surrounding $sim 4.8$ keV intracluster medium (ICM). The cold dust population extends beyond the observed CO emission and must either be protected from interacting with the ICM or be surrounded by local volumes of ICM that are several keV colder than observed by Chandra.
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We reveal the importance of ongoing in-situ star formation in the Brightest Cluster Galaxy in the massive cool-core CLASH cluster MACS 1931.8-2635 at z=0.35. Using a multi-wavelength approach, we assess the stellar and warm ionized medium components, spatially resolved by the VLT-MUSE spectroscopy, and link them to the molecular gas by incorporating sub-mm ALMA observations. We measure the fluxes of strong emission lines, allowing us to determine the physical conditions of the warm ionized gas. The ionized gas flux brightness peak corresponds to the location of the supermassive black hole and the system shows a diffuse warm ionized gas tail extending 30 kpc in N-E direction. The ionized and molecular gas are co-spatial and co-moving, with the gaseous component in the tail falling inward, providing fuel for star formation and accretion-powered nuclear activity. The gas is ionized by a mix of star formation and other energetic processes which give rise to LINER-like emission, with active galactic nuclei emission dominant only in the BCG core. We measure a star formation rate of 97 Msun/yr, with its peak at the BCG core. However, star formation accounts for only 50-60% of the energetics needed to ionize the warm gas. In situ star formation generated by thermally unstable intracluster medium cooling and/or dry mergers dominate the stellar mass growth at z<0.5 and these mechanisms account for the build-up of 20% of the mass of the system. Our measurements reveal that the most central regions of the BCG contain the lowest gas phase oxygen abundance, whereas the tail exhibits slightly more elevated values. The galaxy is a dispersion dominated system, typical for massive, elliptical galaxies. The gas and stellar kinematics are decoupled, with the gaseous velocity fields being more closely related to the bulk motions of the intracluster medium.
We report ALMA Early Science CO(1-0) and CO(3-2) observations of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) in Abell 1664. The BCG contains 1.1x10^{10} solar masses of molecular gas divided roughly equally between two distinct velocity systems: one from -250 to +250 km/s centred on the BCGs systemic velocity and a high velocity system blueshifted by 570 km/s with respect to the systemic velocity. The BCGs systemic component shows a smooth velocity gradient across the BCG center with velocity proportional to radius suggestive of solid body rotation about the nucleus. However, the mass and velocity structure are highly asymmetric and there is little star formation coincident with a putative disk. It may be an inflow of gas that will settle into a disk over several 10^8 yr. The high velocity system consists of two gas clumps, each ~2 kpc across, located to the north and southeast of the nucleus. Each has a line of sight velocity spread of 250-300 km/s. The velocity of the gas in the high velocity system tends to increase towards the BCG center and could signify a massive high velocity flow onto the nucleus. However, the velocity gradient is not smooth and these structures are also coincident with low optical-UV surface brightness regions, which could indicate dust extinction associated with each clump. If so, the high velocity gas would be projected in front of the BCG and moving toward us along the line of sight in a massive outflow most likely driven by the AGN. A merger origin is unlikely but cannot be ruled out.
We investigate the dust-obscured star formation properties of the massive, X-ray selected galaxy cluster MACS J1931.8-2634 at $z$=0.352. Using far-infrared (FIR) imaging in the range 100-500$mu$m obtained with the textit{Herschel} telescope, we extract 31 sources (2$sigma$) within $rsim$1 Mpc from the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG). Among these sources we identify six cluster members for which we perform an analysis of their spectral energy distributions (SEDs). We measure total infrared luminosity (L$_{IR}$), star formation rate (SFR) and dust temperature. The BCG, with L$_{IR}$=1.4$times$10$^{12}$L$_odot$ is an Ultra Luminous Infrared Galaxy and hosts a type II AGN. We decompose its FIR SED into AGN and starburst components and find equal contributions from AGN and starburst. We also recompute the SFR of the BCG finding SFR=150$pm$15 M$_odot$yr$^{-1}$. We search for an isobaric cooling flow in the cool core using {sl Chandra} X-ray data, and find no evidence for gas colder than 1.8 keV in the inner 30 kpc, for an upper limit to the istantaneous mass-deposition rate of 58 M$_odot$yr$^{-1}$ at 95 % c.l. This value is $3times$ lower than the SFR in the BCG, suggesting that the on-going SF episode lasts longer than the ICM cooling events.
We report ALMA Early Science observations of the Abell 1835 brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) in the CO (3-2) and CO (1-0) emission lines. We detect $5times 10^{10}~rm M_odot$ of molecular gas within 10 kpc of the BCG. Its ensemble velocity profile width of $sim 130 ~rm km~s^{-1}$ FWHM is too narrow for the molecular cloud sto be supported in the galaxy by dynamic pressure. The gas may instead be supported in a rotating, turbulent disk oriented nearly face-on. Roughly $10^{10}~rm M_odot$ of molecular gas is projected $3-10 ~rm kpc$ to the north-west and to the east of the nucleus with line of sight velocities lying between $-250 ~rm km~s^{-1}$ to $+480 ~rm km~s^{-1}$ with respect to the systemic velocity. The high velocity gas may be either inflowing or outflowing. However, the absence of high velocity gas toward the nucleus that would be expected in a steady inflow, and its bipolar distribution on either side of the nucleus, are more naturally explained as outflow. Star formation and radiation from the AGN are both incapable of driving an outflow of this magnitude. If so, the molecular outflow may be associated a hot outflow on larger scales reported by Kirkpatrick and colleagues. The molecular gas flow rate of approximately $200~rm M_odot ~yr^{-1}$ is comparable to the star formation rate of $100-180~rm M_odot ~yr^{-1}$ in the central disk. How radio bubbles would lift dense molecular gas in their updrafts, how much gas will be lost to the BCG, and how much will return to fuel future star formation and AGN activity are poorly understood. Our results imply that radio-mechanical (radio mode) feedback not only heats hot atmospheres surrounding elliptical galaxies and BCGs, it is able to sweep higher density molecular gas away from their centers.
Brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) are excellent laboratories to study galaxy evolution in dense Mpc-scale environments. We have observed in CO(1-0), CO(2-1), CO(3-2), or CO(4-3), with the IRAM-30m, 18 BCGs at $zsim0.2-0.9$ that are drawn from the CLASH survey. Our sample includes RX1532, which is our primary target, being among the BCGs with the highest star formation rate (SFR$gtrsim100~M_odot$/yr) in the CLASH sample. We unambiguously detected both CO(1-0) and CO(3-2) in RX1532, yielding a large reservoir of molecular gas, $M_{H_2}=(8.7pm1.1)times10^{10}~M_odot$, and a high level of excitation $r_{31}=0.75pm0.12$. A morphological analysis of the HST I-band image of RX1532 reveals the presence of clumpy substructures both within and outside the half-light radius $r_e=(11.6pm0.3)$ kpc, similarly to those found independently both in ultraviolet and in H$_alpha$ in previous work. We tentatively detected CO(1-0) or CO(2-1) in four other BCGs, with molecular gas reservoirs in the range $M_{H_2}=2times10^{10-11} M_odot$. For the remaining 13 BCGs we set robust upper limits of $M_{H_2}/M_starlesssim0.1$, which are among the lowest molecular gas to stellar mass ratios found for distant ellipticals and BCGs. By comparison with distant cluster galaxies observed in CO our study shows that RX1532 ($M_{H_2}/M_star = 0.40pm0.05$) belongs to the rare population of star forming and gas-rich BCGs in the distant universe. By using available X-ray based estimates of the central intra-cluster medium entropy, we show that the detection of large reservoirs of molecular gas $M_{H_2}gtrsim10^{10}~M_odot$ in distant BCGs is possible when the two conditions are met: i) high SFR and ii) low central entropy, which favors the condensation and the inflow of gas onto the BCGs themselves, similarly to what has been previously found for some local BCGs.
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