Chandra observations of dying radio sources in galaxy clusters ^⋆

¹ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Loc. Poggio dei Pini, Strada 54, 09012 Capoterra (CA), Italy
e-mail: matteo@oa-cagliari.inaf.it
² NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 662, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
³ INAF – Istituto di Radioastronomia, via Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy

Received: 29 May 2012
Accepted: 12 October 2012

Abstract

Context. The dying radio sources represent a very interesting and largely unexplored stage of the active galactic nucleus (AGN) evolution. They are considered to be very rare, and almost all of the few known ones were found in galaxy clusters. However, considering the small number detected so far, it has not been possible to draw any firm conclusions about their X-ray environment.

Aims. We present X-ray observations performed with the Chandra satellite of the three galaxy clusters Abell 2276, ZwCl 1829.3+6912, and RX J1852.1+5711, which harbor at their center a dying radio source with an ultra-steep spectrum that we recently discovered.

Methods. We analyzed the physical properties of the X-ray emitting gas surrounding these elusive radio sources. We determined the global X-ray properties of the clusters, derived the azimuthally averaged profiles of metal abundance, gas temperature, density, and pressure. Furthermore, we estimated the total mass profiles.

Results. The large-scale X-ray emission is regular and spherical, suggesting a relaxed state for these systems. Indeed, we found that the three clusters are also characterized by significant enhancements in the metal abundance and declining temperature profiles toward the central region. For all these reasons, we classified RX J1852.1+5711, Abell 2276, and ZwCl 1829.3+6912 as cool-core galaxy clusters.

Conclusions. We calculated the non-thermal pressure of the radio lobes assuming that the radio sources are in the minimum energy condition. For all dying sources we found that this is on average about one to two orders of magnitude lower than that of the external gas, as found for many other radio sources at the center of galaxy groups and clusters. We found marginal evidence for the presence of X-ray surface brightness depressions coincident with the fossil radio lobes of the dying sources in A2276 and ZwCl 1829.3+691. We estimated the outburst age and energy output for these two dying sources. The energy power from the AGN outburst is significantly higher than the X-ray luminosity in both clusters. Indeed, it is sufficient that a small fraction of this power is dissipated in the intra-cluster medium to reheat the cool cores.