Stormy Weather and Cluster Radio Galaxies

Abstract

New adaptive mesh refinement N-body + hydrodynamics numerical simulations are used to illustrate the complex and changing cluster environments in which many radio galaxies live and evolve. Groups and clusters of galaxies form at the intersections of filaments where they continue to accrete gas and dark matter to the present day. The accretion process produces shocks, turbulence, and transonic bulk flows forming a kind of stormy weather within the intracluster medium (ICM). Radio sources embedded within the stormy ICM form distorted, complex morphologies as observed in recent VLA cluster surveys. We show that the bending of wide-angle tailed radio sources can be understood as the result of recent cluster-subcluster mergers. We use new MHD simulations to illustrate how cluster radio halos can be formed by the shocks and turbulence produced during cluster mergers. Finally, we discuss new observations of distant Abell clusters that reveal a class of weak radio sources, probably starbursts, likely produced during the formation of the clusters as they accrete material from the supercluster environment.

to appear in Life Cycles of Radio Galaxies, ed. J. Biretta et al., New Astronomy Reviews; 8 pages, including 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Radio Halo and Relic Candidates from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey
• X-ray and Radio Interactions in the Cores of Cooling Flow Clusters
• Cluster Mergers as Triggers of Star Formation and Radio Emission: A Comparative Study of the Rich Clusters A2125 and A2645
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