Tracing the Milky Way's Vestigial Nuclear Jet

Abstract

MeerKAT radio continuum and XMM-Newton X-ray images have recently revealed a spectacular bipolar channel at the Galactic Center that spans several degrees ($\sim$0.5 kpc). An intermittent jet likely formed this channel and is consistent with earlier evidence of a sustained, Seyfert-level outburst fueled by black-hole accretion onto Sgr A${}^{\ast }$ several Myr ago. Therefore, to trace a now weak jet that perhaps penetrated, deflected, and percolated along multiple paths through the interstellar medium, relevant interactions are identified and quantified in archival X-ray images, Hubble Space Telescope Paschen $\alpha$ images and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array millimeter-wave spectra, and new SOAR telescope IR spectra. Hydrodynamical simulations are used to show how a currently weak jet can explain these structures and inflate the ROSAT/eROSITA X-ray and Fermi $\gamma$-ray bubbles that extend $\pm 75°$ from the Galactic plane. Thus, our Galactic outflow has features in common with energetic, jet-driven structures in the prototypical Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068.

30 pages, 32 figures in main text, 17 interactive figure and control Javascript in /anc subdirectory. Please retrieve paper with full resolution figures and interactive figure at http://physics.unc.edu/~cecil/MWjet; paper text and figures revised to agree with published version in the ApJ except somehow they managed to completely botch Fig 1 so the correct version is in this archive

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