A number of relaxed, cool-core galaxy clusters exhibit diffuse, steep-spectrum radio sources in their central regions, known as radio mini-halos. It has been proposed that the relativistic electrons ...responsible for the emission have been reaccelerated by turbulence generated by the sloshing of the cool core gas. We present a high-resolution MHD simulation of gas sloshing in a galaxy cluster coupled with subgrid simulations of relativistic electron acceleration to test this hypothesis. Our simulation shows that the sloshing motions generate turbulence on the order of deltaupsilon ~ 50-200 km s super(-1) on spatial scales of ~50-100 kpc and below in the cool core region within the envelope of the sloshing cold fronts, whereas outside the cold fronts, there is negligible turbulence. This turbulence is potentially strong enough to reaccelerate relativistic electron seeds (with initial gamma ~ 100-500) to gamma ~ 10 super(4) via damping of magnetosonic waves and non-resonant compression. The seed electrons could remain in the cluster from, e.g., past active galactic nucleus activity. In combination with the magnetic field amplification in the core, these electrons then produce diffuse radio synchrotron emission that is coincident with the region bounded by the sloshing cold fronts, as indeed observed in X-rays and the radio. The result holds for different initial spatial distributions of pre-existing relativistic electrons. The power and the steep spectral index (alpha approximately 1-2) of the resulting radio emission are consistent with observations of mini-halos, though the theoretical uncertainties of the acceleration mechanisms are high. We also produce simulated maps of inverse-Compton hard X-ray emission from the same population of relativistic electrons.
Context.
A large fraction of cool-core clusters are known to host diffuse, steep-spectrum radio sources, called radio mini-halos, in their cores. Mini-halos reveal the presence of relativistic ...particles on scales of hundreds of kiloparsecs, beyond the scales directly influenced by the central active galactic nucleus (AGN), but the nature of the mechanism that produces such a population of radio-emitting, relativistic electrons is still debated. It is also unclear to what extent the AGN plays a role in the formation of mini-halos by providing the seeds of the relativistic population.
Aims.
In this work we explore the connection between thermal and non-thermal components of the intra-cluster medium in a sample of radio mini-halos and we study the implications within the framework of a hadronic model for the origin of the emitting electrons.
Methods.
For the first time, we studied the thermal and non-thermal connection by carrying out a point-to-point comparison of the radio and the X-ray surface brightness in a sample of radio mini-halos. We extended the method generally applied to giant radio halos by considering the effects of a grid randomly generated through a Monte Carlo chain. Then we used the radio and X-ray correlation to constrain the physical parameters of a hadronic model and we compared the model predictions with current observations.
Results.
Contrary to what is generally reported in the literature for giant radio halos, we find that the mini-halos in our sample have super-linear scaling between radio and X-rays, which suggests a peaked distribution of relativistic electrons and magnetic field. We explore the consequences of our findings on models of mini-halos. We use the four mini-halos in the sample that have a roundish brightness distribution to constrain model parameters in the case of a hadronic origin of the mini-halos. Specifically, we focus on a model where cosmic rays are injected by the central AGN and they generate secondaries in the intra-cluster medium, and we assume that the role of turbulent re-acceleration is negligible. This simple model allows us to constrain the AGN cosmic ray luminosity in the range ∼10
44−46
erg s
−1
and the central magnetic field in the range 10–40
μ
G. The resulting
γ
-ray fluxes calculated assuming these model parameters do not violate the upper limits on
γ
-ray diffuse emission set by the
Fermi
-LAT telescope. Further studies are now required to explore the consistency of these large magnetic fields with Faraday rotation studies and to study the interplay between the secondary electrons and the intra-cluster medium turbulence.
A radio counterpart to a neutron star merger Hallinan, G.; Corsi, A.; Mooley, K. P. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
12/2017, Letnik:
358, Številka:
6370
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Gravitational waves have been detected from a binary neutron star merger event, GW170817. The detection of electromagnetic radiation from the same source has shown that the merger occurred in the ...outskirts of the galaxy NGC 4993, at a distance of 40 megaparsecs from Earth. We report the detection of a counterpart radio source that appears 16 days after the event, allowing us to diagnose the energetics and environment of the merger. The observed radio emission can be explained by either a collimated ultrarelativistic jet, viewed off-axis, or a cocoon of mildly relativistic ejecta. Within 100 days of the merger, the radio light curves will enable observers to distinguish between these models, and the angular velocity and geometry of the debris will be directly measurable by very long baseline interferometry.
Abstract
We present radio and X-ray studies of A3444 and MS1455.0+2232, two galaxy clusters with radio minihalos in their cool cores. A3444 is imaged using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) ...at 333, 607, and 1300 MHz and the Very Large Array at 1435 MHz. Most of the minihalo is contained within
r
< 120 kpc, but a fainter extension, stretching out to 380 kpc southwest of the center, is detected at 607 MHz. Using Chandra, we detect four X-ray sloshing cold fronts: three in the cool core at
r
= 60, 120, and 230 kpc, and a fourth one at
r
= 400 kpc—in the region of the southwestern radio extension—suggesting that the intracluster medium (ICM) is sloshing on a cluster-wide scale. The radio emission is contained within the envelope defined by these fronts. We also analyzed archival 383 MHz GMRT and Chandra observations of MS 1455.0+2232, which exhibits a known minihalo with its bright part delineated by cold fronts inside the cool core, but with a faint extension beyond the core. Similarly to A3444, we find a cold front at
r
∼ 425 kpc, containing the radio emission. Thus the entire diffuse radio emission seen in these clusters appears to be related to large-scale sloshing of the ICM. The radio spectrum of the A3444 minihalo is a power law with a steep index
α
= 1.0 ± 0.1. The spectrum steepens with increasing distance from the center, as expected if the minihalo originates from reacceleration of relativistic particles by the sloshing-induced turbulence in the ICM.
Many galaxy clusters host megaparsec-scale radio halos, generated by ultrarelativistic electrons in the magnetized intracluster medium. The X-ray luminosity and redshift-limited Extended GMRT Radio ...Halo Survey provides a rich and unique dataset for statistical studies of the halos. We uniformly analyze the radio and X-ray data for the GMRT cluster sample, and use the new Planck Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) catalog to revisit the correlations between the power of radio halos and the thermal properties of galaxy clusters. Our bigger and more homogenous sample confirms that the X-ray luminous (L sub(500) > 5 x 10 super(44) erg s super(-1)) clusters branch into two populations-radio halos lie on the correlation, while clusters without radio halos have their radio upper limits well below that correlation. Bimodality of both correlations can be traced to clusters dynamics, with radio halos found exclusively in merging clusters. These results confirm the key role of mergers for the origin of giant radio halos, suggesting that they trigger the relativistic particle acceleration.
The Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS) is a synoptic, all-sky radio sky survey with a unique combination of high angular resolution ( 2 5), sensitivity (a 1 goal of 70 Jy/beam in the coadded data), ...full linear Stokes polarimetry, time domain coverage, and wide bandwidth (2-4 GHz). The first observations began in 2017 September, and observing for the survey will finish in 2024. VLASS will use approximately 5500 hr of time on the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to cover the whole sky visible to the VLA (decl. > −40°), a total of 33 885 deg 2 . The data will be taken in three epochs to allow the discovery of variable and transient radio sources. The survey is designed to engage radio astronomy experts, multi-wavelength astronomers, and citizen scientists alike. By utilizing an "on the fly" interferometry mode, the observing overheads are much reduced compared to a conventional pointed survey. In this paper, we present the science case and observational strategy for the survey, and also results from early survey observations.
A521 is an interacting galaxy cluster located at z = 0.247, hosting a low-frequency radio halo connected to an eastern radio relic. Previous Chandra observations hinted at the presence of an X-ray ...brightness edge at the position of the relic, which may be a shock front. We analyze a deep observation of A521 recently performed with XMM-Newton in order to probe the cluster structure up to the outermost regions covered by the radio emission. The cluster atmosphere exhibits various brightness and temperature anisotropies. In particular, two cluster cores appear to be separated by two cold fronts. We find two shock fronts, one that was suggested by Chandra and that is propagating to the east, and another to the southwestern cluster outskirt. The two main interacting clusters appear to be separated by a shock-heated region, which exhibits a spatial correlation with the radio halo. The outer edge of the radio relic coincides spatially with a shock front, suggesting that this shock is responsible for the generation of cosmic-ray electrons in the relic. The propagation direction and Mach number of the shock front derived from the gas density jump, M = 2.4 + or - 0.2, are consistent with expectations from the radio spectral index, under the assumption of Fermi I acceleration mechanism.
The Extended GMRT Radio Halo Survey Kale, R; Venturi, T; Giacintucci, S ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
7/2015, Letnik:
579
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The intra-cluster medium contains cosmic rays and magnetic fields that are manifested through the large scale synchrotron sources, termed radio haloes, relics, and mini-haloes. The Extended Giant ...Metre-wave Radio Telescope (GMRT) Radio Halo Survey (EGRHS) is an extension of the GMRT Radio Halo Survey (GRHS) designed to search for radio haloes using GMRT 610/235 MHz observations. A new mini-halo in RX J2129.6+0005 and candidate diffuse sources in Z5247, A2552, and Z1953 have been discovered. A unique feature of this survey are the upper limits on the detections of 1 Mpc sized radio haloes; 4 new are presented here, making a total of 31 in the survey. Of the sample, 58 clusters with adequately sensitive radio information were used to obtain the most accurate occurrence fractions so far. The occurrence fractions of radio haloes, mini-haloes and relics in our sample are ~22%, ~16% and ~5%, respectively.
The frequently observed association between giant radio halos (RHs) and merging galaxy clusters has driven present theoretical models of non-thermal emission from galaxy clusters, which are based on ...the idea that the energy dissipated during cluster-cluster mergers could power the formation of RHs. To quantitatively test the merger-halo connection, we present the first statistical study based on deep radio data and X-ray observations of a complete X-ray-selected sample of galaxy clusters with X-ray luminosity {>=}5 x 10{sup 44} erg s{sup -1} and redshift 0.2 {<=} z {<=} 0.32. Using several methods to characterize cluster substructures, namely, the power ratios, centroid shift, and X-ray brightness concentration parameter, we show that clusters with and without RH can be quantitatively differentiated in terms of their dynamical properties. In particular, we confirm that RHs are associated with dynamically disturbed clusters and clusters without RH are more 'relaxed', with only a couple of exceptions where a disturbed cluster does not exhibit a halo.
Abstract
We present the first detailed analysis of the ultra-steep spectrum radio halo in the merging galaxy cluster A521, based on upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio telescope observations. The ...combination of radio observations (300–850 MHz) and archival X-ray data provides a new window into the complex physics occurring in this system. When compared to all previous analyses, our sensitive radio images detected the centrally located radio halo emission to a greater extent of ∼1.3 Mpc. A faint extension of the southeastern radio relic has been discovered. We detected another relic, recently discovered by MeerKAT, and coincident with a possible shock front in the X-rays, at the northwest position of the center. We find that the integrated spectrum of the radio halo is well-fitted with a spectral index of −1.86 ± 0.12. A spatially resolved spectral index map revealed the spectral index fluctuations, as well as an outward radial steepening of the average spectral index. The radio and X-ray surface brightness is well correlated for the entire and different subparts of the halo, with sublinear correlation slopes (0.50–0.65). We also found a mild anticorrelation between the spectral index and X-ray surface brightness. Newly detected extensions of the SE relic and the counter relic are consistent with the merger in the plane of the sky.
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