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Register a new userConstraining the AGN duty cycle in the cool-core cluster MS 0735.6+7421 with LOFAR data
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MS 0735.6+7421 is a galaxy cluster which hosts a central radio galaxy with a very steep spectrum, produced by one of the most powerful known jetted active galactic nuclei (AGN). The radio plasma, ejected at nearly light speed from the central AGN, have displaced the intra-cluster medium, leaving two pairs of cavities observable in the X-ray, associated to two different outbursts, and have distributed energy to the surrounding medium. In this work we have performed for the first time a detailed, high-resolution spectral study of the source at radio frequencies and investigated its duty cycle to be compared with previous X-ray estimates. We have used new observations at 144 MHz produced with the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) together with archival data at higher frequencies. At LOFAR frequency, the source presents two large outer radio lobes, wider than at higher frequencies, and a smaller Intermediate lobe located south-west of the core. A new inspection of X-ray data, allowed us to identify an intermediate cavity, associated with that lobe, indicating the presence of a further phase of jet activity. The radio lobes have a steep spectrum even at LOFAR frequencies, reaching $alpha_{144}^{610}=2.9$ in the outer lobes and $alpha_{144}^{610}=2.1$ in the Intermediate lobe. Fitting the lobe spectra using a single injection model of particle ageing, we derived a total age of the source between 170 and 106 Myr, in agreement with the buoyancy and sound crossing time-scales derived from X-ray data. We then reconstructed the duty cycle of the source. There were three phases of jet activity, with the AGN being active for most of the time with only brief quiescent phases, ensuring the repeated heating of the central gas. Finally, energetic estimates revealed that a source of additional pressure support must be present to sustain the bubbles against the pressure of the external medium.
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We present an analysis of deep Chandra X-ray observations of the galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421, which hosts the most energetic radio AGN known. Our analysis has revealed two cavities in its hot atmosphere with diameters of 200-240 kpc. The total cavity enthalpy, mean age, and mean jet power are $9times 10^{61}$ erg, $1.6times 10^{8}$ yr, and $1.7times 10^{46}$ erg/s, respectively. The cavities are surrounded by nearly continuous temperature and surface brightness discontinuities associated with an elliptical shock front of Mach number 1.26 (1.17-1.30) and age of $1.1times 10^{8}$ yr. The shock has injected at least $4times 10^{61}$ erg into the hot atmosphere at a rate of $1.1times 10^{46}$ erg/s. A second pair of cavities and possibly a second shock front are located along the radio jets, indicating that the AGN power has declined by a factor of 30 over the past 100 Myr. The multiphase atmosphere surrounding the central galaxy is cooling at a rate of 36 Msun/yr, but does not fuel star formation at an appreciable rate. In addition to heating, entrainment in the radio jet may be depleting the nucleus of fuel and preventing gas from condensing out of the intracluster medium. Finally, we examine the mean time intervals between AGN outbursts in systems with multiple generations of X-ray cavities. We find that, like MS0735, their AGN rejuvenate on a timescale that is approximately 1/3 of their mean central cooling timescales, indicating that jet heating is outpacing cooling in these systems.
Outbursts from active galactic nuclei (AGN) can inflate cavities in the intracluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters and are believed to play the primary role in offsetting radiative cooling in the ICM. However, the details of how the energy from AGN feedback thermalizes to heat the ICM is not well understood, partly due to the unknown composition and energetics of the cavities. The Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect, a measure of the integrated pressure along the line of sight, provides a means of measuring the thermal contents of the cavities, to discriminate between thermal, nonthermal, and other sources of pressure support. Here we report measurements of the SZ effect at 30 GHz toward the galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 (MS0735), using the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). MS0735 hosts the most energetic AGN outburst known and lobes of radio synchrotron emission coincident with a pair of giant X-ray cavities $sim 200$ across. Our CARMA maps show a clear deficit in the SZ signal coincident with the X-ray identified cavities, when compared to a smooth X-ray derived pressure model. We find that the cavities have very little SZ-contributing material, suggesting that they are either supported by very diffuse thermal plasma with temperature in excess of hundreds of keV, or are not supported thermally. Our results represent the first detection (with $4.4 sigma$ significance) of this phenomenon with the SZ effect.
We used broad-band imaging data for 10 cool-core brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs) and conducted a Bayesian analysis using stellar population synthesis to determine the likely properties of the constituent stellar populations. Determination of ongoing star formation rates (SFRs), in particular, has a direct impact on our understanding of the cooling of the intracluster medium (ICM), star formation and AGN-regulated feedback. Our model consists of an old stellar population and a series of young stellar components. We calculated marginalized posterior probability distributions for various model parameters and obtained 68% plausible intervals from them. The 68% plausible interval on the SFRs is broad, owing to a wide range of models that are capable of fitting the data, which also explains the wide dispersion in the star formation rates available in the literature. The ranges of possible SFRs are robust and highlight the strength in such a Bayesian analysis. The SFRs are correlated with the X-ray mass deposition rates (the former are factors of 4 to 50 lower than the latter), implying a picture where the cooling of the ICM is a contributing factor to star formation in cool-core BCGs. We find that 9 out of 10 BCGs have been experiencing starbursts since 6 Gyr ago. While four out of 9 BCGs seem to require continuous SFRs, 5 out of 9 seem to require periodic star formation on intervals ranging from 20 Myr to 200 Myr. This time scale is similar to the cooling-time of the ICM in the central (< 5 kpc) regions.
We present a multi-wavelength analysis of the galaxy cluster A1668, performed by means of new EVLA and Chandra observations and archival H$alpha$ data. The radio images exhibit a small central source ($sim$14 kpc at 1.4 GHz) with L$_{text{1.4 GHz}}$ $sim$6 $cdot$ 10$^{23}$ W Hz$^{-1}$. The mean spectral index between 1.4 GHz and 5 GHz is $sim$ -1, consistent with the usual indices found in BCGs. The cooling region extends for 40 kpc, with bolometric X-ray luminosity L$_{text{cool}} = 1.9pm 0.1 cdot$ 10$^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$. We detect an offset of $sim$ 6 kpc between the cluster BCG and the X-ray peak, and another offset of $sim$ 7.6 kpc between the H$alpha$ and the X-ray peaks. We discuss possible causes for these offsets, which suggest that the coolest gas is not condensing directly from the lowest-entropy gas. In particular, we argue that the cool ICM was drawn out from the core by sloshing, whereas the H$alpha$ filaments were pushed aside from the expanding radio galaxy lobes. We detect two putative X-ray cavities, spatially associated to the west radio lobe (cavity A) and to the east radio lobe (cavity B). The cavity power and age of the system are P$_{text{cav}} sim$ 9 $times$10$^{42}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and t$_{text{age}} sim$5.2 Myr, respectively. Evaluating the position of A1668 in the cooling luminosity-cavity power parameter space, we find that the AGN energy injection is currently consistent within the scatter of the relationship, suggesting that offset cooling is likely not breaking the AGN feedback cycle.
The galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 hosts two large X-ray cavities, filled with radio emission, where a decrease of the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect has been detected, without establishing if its origin is thermal (from a gas with very high temperature) or non-thermal. In this paper we study how thermal and non-thermal contributions to the SZ effect in the cavities are related; in fact, Coulomb interactions with the thermal gas modify the spectrum of low energy non-thermal electrons, which dominate the non-thermal SZ effect; as a consequence, the intensity of the non-thermal SZ effect is stronger for lower density of the thermal gas inside the cavity. We calculate the non-thermal SZ effect in the cavities as a function of the thermal density, and compare the SZ effects produced by thermal and non-thermal components, and with the one from the external Intra Cluster Medium (ICM), searching for the best frequency range where it is possible to disentangle the different contributions. We find that for temperatures inside the cavities higher than $sim1500$ keV the non-thermal SZ effect is expected to dominate on the thermal one, particularly at high frequencies ($ u>500$ GHz), where it can also be a non-negligible fraction of the SZ effect from the external ICM. We also discuss the possible sources of astrophysical bias (as kinetic SZ effect and foreground emission from Galactic dust) and possible ways to address them, as well as necessary improvements in the modeling of the properties of cavities and the ICM.
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