Interaction of Cygnus A with its environment

Abstract

Cygnus A, the nearest truly powerful radio galaxy, resides at the centre of a massive galaxy cluster. Chandra X-ray observations reveal its cocoon shocks, radio lobe cavities and an X-ray jet, which are discussed here. It is argued that X-ray emission from the outer regions of the cocoon shocks is nonthermal. The X-ray jets are best interpreted as synchrotron emission, suggesting that they, rather than the radio jets, are the path of energy flow from the nucleus to the hotspots. In that case, a model shows that the jet flow is non-relativistic and carries in excess of one solar mass per year.

6 pages, 5 figure. To appear in the Proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 313: "Extragalactic jets from every angle," Galapagos, Ecuador, 15-19 September 2014, F. Massaro, C. C. Cheung, E. Lopez, and A. Siemiginowksa (eds.), Cambridge University Press

References in corpus (3)

• High-energy particle acceleration at the radio-lobe shock of Centaurus A
• On the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability of Radio Bubbles in Galaxy Clusters
• Multiwavelength study of Cygnus A II. X-ray inverse-Compton emission from a relic counterjet and implications for jet duty-cycles