High density of active galactic nuclei in the outskirts of distant galaxy clusters

Abstract

We present a study of the distribution of X-ray detected active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the five most massive, $M_{500}^{SZ}>10^{14}{M}_{\odot }$ , and distant, z$\sim$1, galaxy clusters in the \textit{Planck} and South Pole Telescope (SPT)\textit{} surveys. The spatial and thermodynamic individual properties of each cluster have been defined with unprecedented accuracy at this redshift using deep X-ray observations. This is an essential property of our sample in order to precisely determine the $R_{500}^{Y_{\text{x}}}$ radius of the clusters. For our purposes, we computed the X-ray point-like source surface density in 0.5$R_{500}^{Y_{\text{x}}}$ wide annuli up to a clustercentric distance of 4$R_{500}^{Y_{\text{x}}}$, statistically subtracting the background and accounting for the respective average density of optical galaxies. We found a significant excess of X-ray point sources between 2 and 2.5$R_{500}^{Y_{\text{x}}}$ at the 99.9\% confidence level. The results clearly display for the first time strong observational evidence of AGN triggering in the outskirts of high-redshift massive clusters with such a high statistical significance. We argue that the particular conditions at this distance from the cluster centre increase the galaxy merging rate, which is probably the dominant mechanism of AGN triggering in the outskirts of massive clusters.

Letter to the editor, accepted in A&A

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• The 700 ks Chandra Spiderweb Field I: evidence for widespread nuclear activity in the Protocluster
• A Link Between Ram Pressure Stripping and Active Galactic Nuclei
• The cosmic web of X-ray active galactic nuclei seen through the eROSITA Final Equatorial Depth Survey (eFEDS)
• Lower AGN Abundance in Galaxy Clusters at z < 0.5
• Environmental dependence of AGN activity and star formation in galaxy clusters from Magneticum simulations
• The XXL Survey XLIV. Sunyaev-Zel'dovich mapping of a low-mass cluster at z~1: a multi-wavelength approach
• Distribution of merging and post-merging galaxies in nearby galaxy clusters
• COALAS III: The ATCA CO(1-0) look at the growth and death of H$\alpha$ emitters in the Spiderweb protocluster at z=2.16
• Cosmic evolution of the incidence of Active Galactic Nuclei in massive clusters: Simulations versus observations
• XXL-HSC: Host properties of X-ray detected AGNs in XXL clusters
• Excess cataloged X-ray and radio sources at galaxy-cluster virial shocks
• Multiwavelength properties of the low-redshift isolated galaxies with active nuclei modelled with CIGALE
• GLACE survey: galaxy activity in ZwCl0024+1652 cluster from strong optical emission lines
• The Complex Structure of the Abell 548 - Abell 3367 Region