New detections of radio minihalos in cool cores of galaxy clusters

Cool cores of some galaxy clusters exhibit faint radio minihalos. Their origin is unclear; their study has been limited by their small number. We undertook a systematic search for minihalos in a large sample of X-ray luminous clusters with high-quality radio data. In this paper, we report four new minihalos (A 478, ZwCl 3146, RXJ 1532.9+3021 and A 2204), and five candidates, found in the reanalyzed archival Very Large Array observations. The radio luminosities of our minihalos and candidates are in the range $10^{23-25}$ W Hz$^{-1}$ at 1.4 GHz, consistent with this type of radio sources. Their sizes (40-160 kpc in radius) are somewhat smaller than those of the previously known minihalos. We combine our new detections with previously known minihalos, obtaining a total sample of 21 objects, and briefly compare the cluster radio properties to the average X-ray temperature and the total masses estimated from Planck. We find that nearly all clusters hosting minihalos are hot and massive. Beyond that, there is no clear correlation between the minihalo radio power and cluster temperature or mass (in contrast with the giant radio halos found in cluster mergers, whose radio luminosity correlates with the cluster mass). Chandra X-ray images indicate gas sloshing in the cool cores of most of our clusters, with minihalos contained within the sloshing regions in many of them. This supports the hypothesis that radio-emitting electrons are reaccelerated by sloshing. Advection of relativistic electrons by the sloshing gas may also play a role in the formation of the less-extended minihalos.

An unlikely radio halo in the low X-ray luminosity galaxy cluster RXC J1514.9-1523

We report the discovery of a giant radio halo in the galaxy cluster RXC J1514.9-1523 at z=0.22 with a relatively low X-ray luminosity, $L_{X , [0.1-2.4 rm , kev]} sim 7 times 10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$. This faint, diffuse radio source is detected with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at 327 MHz. The source is barely detected at 1.4 GHz in a NVSS pointing that we have reanalyzed. The integrated radio spectrum of the halo is quite steep, with a slope alpha = 1.6 between 327 MHz and 1.4 GHz. While giant radio halos are common in more X-ray luminous cluster mergers, there is a less than 10% probability to detect a halo in systems with $L_X ltsim 8 times 10^{44}$ erg s$^{-1}$. The detection of a new giant halo in this borderline luminosity regime can be particularly useful for discriminating between the competing theories for the origin of ultrarelativistic electrons in clusters. Furthermore, if our steep radio spectral index is confirmed by future deeper radio observations, this cluster would provide another example of the recently discovered population of ultra-steep spectrum radio halos, predicted by the model in which the cluster cosmic ray electrons are produced by turbulent reacceleration.