The relation between accretion rate and jet power in early-type galaxies with thermally unstable hot atmospheres

Abstract

We use Chandra X-ray data and Very Large Array radio observations for a sample of 20 nearby, massive, X-ray bright, early-type galaxies to investigate the relation between the Bondi accretion rates and the mechanical jet powers. We find a strong correlation ($\rho =0.96_{-0.09}^{+0.03}$; BF${}_{10}>100$) between the Bondi accretion power, $P_{\text{Bondi}}$, and the mechanical jet power, $P_{\text{jet}}$, for a subsample of 14 galaxies, which also host cool H$\alpha$+[NII] line emitting gas and thus likely have thermally unstable atmospheres. The relation between the Bondi accretion power and the mechanical jet power for this subsample is well described by a power-law model $\log \frac{P_{\mathrm{Bondi}}}{10^{43}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}}=\alpha +\beta \log \frac{P_{\mathrm{jet}}}{10^{43}\mathrm{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}}$, where $\alpha =1.10\pm 0.25$ and $\beta =1.10\pm 0.24$ with an intrinsic scatter $\sigma =0.08_{-0.06}^{+0.14}$ dex. The results indicate that in all galaxies with thermally unstable atmospheres the cooling atmospheric gas feeds the central black holes at a similar jet-to-Bondi power ratio. For the full sample of 20 galaxies, the correlation is weaker and in a subset of galaxies with no signs of H$\alpha$+[NII] emission, we see a hint for a systematically lower jet-to-Bondi power ratio. We also investigate the dependence of jet power on individual quantities in the Bondi formula such as the supermassive black hole mass ($M_{\bullet }$) and the specific entropy of the gas ($K$) at the Bondi radius. For the subsample of H$\alpha$+[NII] emitting galaxies, we find a very tight correlation of $P_{\text{jet}}$ with $M_{\bullet }$ ($\rho =0.91_{-0.11}^{+0.06}$; BF${}_{10}>100$) and, although poorly constrained, a hint of an anti-correlation for $P_{\text{jet}}$ and $K$ ($\rho =-0.47_{-0.37}^{+0.60}$; BF${}_{10}=1.1$).

accepted for publication in MNRAS

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