The Dragonfly Galaxy. III. Jet-brightening of a High-redshift Radio Source Caught in a Violent Merger of Disk Galaxies

Abstract

The Dragonfly Galaxy (MRC 0152-209), the most infrared-luminous radio galaxy at redshift z~2, is a merger system containing a powerful radio source and large displacements of gas. We present kpc-resolution data from ALMA and the VLA of carbon monoxide (6-5), dust, and synchrotron continuum, combined with Keck integral-field spectroscopy. We find that the Dragonfly consists of two galaxies with rotating disks that are in the early phase of merging. The radio jet originates from the northern galaxy and brightens when it hits the disk of the southern galaxy. The Dragonfly Galaxy therefore likely appears as a powerful radio galaxy because its flux is boosted into the regime of high-z radio galaxies by the jet-disk interaction. We also find a molecular outflow of (1100 $\pm$ 550) M${}_{\odot }$/yr associated with the radio host galaxy, but not with the radio hot-spot or southern galaxy, which is the galaxy that hosts the bulk of the star formation. Gravitational effects of the merger drive a slower and longer lived mass displacement at a rate of (170 $\pm$ 40) M${}_{\odot }$/yr, but this tidal debris contain at least as much molecular gas mass as the much faster outflow, namely M(H2) = (3 $\pm$ 1) x 10${}^9$ (alpha(CO)/0.8) M${}_{\odot }$. This suggests that both the AGN-driven outflow and mass transfer due to tidal effects are important in the evolution of the Dragonfly system. The Keck data show Ly$\alpha$ emission spread across 100 kpc, and CIV and HeII emission across 35 kpc, confirming the presence of a metal-rich and extended circumgalactic medium previously detected in CO(1-0).

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in ApJ (15 pages, 9 figures)

References in corpus (64)

• Gasdynamics and Starbursts in Major Mergers
• Rotating Nuclear Rings and Extreme Starbursts in Ultraluminous Galaxies
• A Cosmology Calculator for the World Wide Web
• CASA, the Common Astronomy Software Applications for Radio Astronomy
• A Study of the Gas-Star Formation Relation over Cosmic Time
• Massive Molecular Outflows and Evidence for AGN Feedback from CO Observations
• Molecular Gas at High Redshift
• Different star formation laws for disks versus starbursts at low and high redshifts
• Distant Radio Galaxies and their Environments
• A cosmic web filament revealed in Lyman-alpha emission around a luminous high-redshift quasar
• H I, H II, and R-Band Observations of a Galactic Merger Sequence
• Ubiquitous giant Ly $\alpha$ nebulae around the brightest quasars at $z\sim 3.5$ revealed with MUSE
• The ISM in distant star-forming galaxies: Turbulent pressure, fragmentation and cloud scaling relations in a dense gas disk at z=2.3
• The Keck Cosmic Web Imager Integral Field Spectrograph
• The Massive Hosts of Radio Galaxies Across Cosmic Time
• Galaxy Clusters around radio-loud AGN at 1.3 < z < 3.2 as seen by Spitzer
• The spectra and energies of classical double radio lobes
• Radio Continuum Imaging of High Redshift Radio Galaxies
• An excess of dusty starbursts related to the Spiderweb galaxy
• Kinematically quiet halos around z~2.5 radio galaxies. Keck spectroscopy
• The Spitzer High Redshift Radio Galaxy Survey
• NICMOS observations of high redshift radio galaxies: witnessing the formation of bright elliptical galaxies?
• VLA radio continuum observations of a new sample of high redshift radio galaxies
• The optical morphologies of the 2Jy sample of radio galaxies: evidence for galaxy interactions
• Rapidly growing black holes and host galaxies in the distant Universe from the Herschel Radio Galaxy Evolution Project
• Quasars That Have Transitioned from Radio-quiet to Radio-loud on Decadal Timescales Revealed by VLASS and FIRST
• The Mid-Infrared Environments of High-Redshift Radio Galaxies
• The diverse cold molecular gas contents, morphologies, and kinematics of type-2 quasars as seen by ALMA
• The SINFONI survey of powerful radio galaxies at z~2: Jet-driven AGN feedback during the Quasar Era
• Starburst radio galaxies: general properties, evolutionary histories and triggering
• CO(1-0) survey of high-z radio galaxies: alignment of molecular halo gas with distant radio sources
• Centaurus A: morphology and kinematics of the atomic hydrogen
• Revealing the heavily obscured AGN population of High Redshift 3CRR Sources with Chandra X-ray Observations
• VIMOS-VLT spectroscopy of the giant Ly-alpha nebulae associated with three z~2.5 radio galaxies
• PKS 1814-637: a powerful radio-loud AGN in a disk galaxy
• Mapping the Dynamics of a Giant Ly-alpha Halo at z=4.1 with MUSE: The Energetics of a Large Scale AGN-Driven Outflow around a Massive, High-Redshift Galaxy
• Systematic difference between ionized and molecular gas velocity dispersion in $z\sim 1-2$ disks and local analogues
• The growth and assembly of a massive galaxy at z ~ 2
• A Molecular Gas Bridge between the Taffy Galaxies
• Massive galaxies on the road to quenching: ALMA observations of powerful high redshift radio galaxies
• A Radio Through X-ray Study of the Jet/Companion-Galaxy Interaction in 3C 321
• Ubiquitous Molecular Outflows in z > 4 Massive, Dusty Galaxies I. Sample Overview and Clumpy Structure in Molecular Outflows on 500pc Scales
• Ubiquitous Molecular Outflows in z > 4 Massive, Dusty Galaxies II. Momentum-Driven Winds Powered by Star Formation in the Early Universe
• Impact of relativistic jets on the star formation rate: a turbulence-regulated framework
• Probing the absorbing haloes around two high-redshift radio galaxies with VLT-UVES
• Abundant molecular gas in the intergalactic medium of Stephan's Quintet
• The AGN fuelling/feedback cycle in nearby radio galaxies II. Kinematics of the molecular gas
• Molecular CO(1-0) gas in the z~2 radio galaxy MRC 0152-209
• Are Cosmological Gas Accretion Streams Multiphase and Turbulent?
• Taking snapshots of the jet-ISM interplay: The case of PKS0023-26
• Star Formation Suppresion by Tidal Removal of Cold Molecular Gas from an Intermediate-Redshift Massive Post-Starburst Galaxy
• Are we seeing accretion flows in a 250kpc-sized Ly-alpha halo at z=3?
• Extreme host galaxy growth in powerful early-epoch radio galaxies
• Disentangling star formation and AGN activity in powerful infrared luminous radio galaxies at 1<z<4
• A CO-rich merger shaping a powerful and hyper-luminous infrared radio galaxy at z=2: the Dragonfly Galaxy
• Quenching by gas compression and consumption: A case study of a massive radio galaxy at z = 2.57
• ALMA [CII] 158um imaging of an HI-Selected Major Merger at z~4
• MUSE unravels the ionisation and origin of metal enriched absorbers in the gas halo of a z = 2.92 radio galaxy
• Mr-Moose: An advanced SED-fitting tool for heterogeneous multi-wavelength datasets
• RAD@home citizen science discovery of an AGN spewing a large unipolar radio bubble onto its merging companion galaxy
• ALMA observations of massive molecular gas reservoirs in dusty early-type galaxies
• Shining Light on Merging Galaxies I: The Ongoing Merger of a Quasar with a `Green Valley' Galaxy
• A radio-jet -- galaxy interaction in 3C441
• Spatially extended absorption around the z=2.63 radio galaxy MRC 2025-218: outflow or infall?

Cited by in corpus (4)

• JWST + ALMA ubiquitously discover companion systems within $\lesssim 18$kpc around four $z$$\approx$3.5 luminous radio-loud AGN
• CO survey of high-z radio galaxies, revisited with ALMA: Jet-cloud Alignments and Synchrotron Brightening by Molecular Gas in the Circumgalactic Environment
• PASSAGES: The Discovery of a Strongly Lensed Protocluster Core Candidate at Cosmic Noon
• Gas dynamics in an AGN-host galaxy at $z\simeq 2.6$: regular rotation, non-circular motions, and mass models