MaNGA integral-field stellar kinematics of LoTSS radio galaxies: Luminous radio galaxies tend to be slow rotators

¹ Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
e-mail: zheng@strw.leidenuniv.nl
² Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ghent University, Belgium
³ Max-Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
⁴ Sub-department of Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, UK

Received: 8 November 2022
Accepted: 16 March 2023

Abstract

The radio jets of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) can heat up the gas around a host galaxy and quench star formation activity. The presence of a radio jet could be related to the evolutionary path of the host galaxy and may be imprinted in the morphology and kinematics of the galaxy. In this work, we use data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory survey and the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) Two-Metre Sky Survey as well as the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) Sky Survey and the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeter survey. We combine these integral field spectroscopic data and radio data to study the link between stellar kinematics and radio AGNs. We find that the luminosity-weighted stellar angular momentum λ_Re is tightly related to the range of radio luminosity and the fraction of radio AGNs F_radio present in galaxies, as high-luminosity radio AGNs are only in galaxies with a small λ_Re, and the F_radio at a fixed stellar mass decreases with λ_Re. These results indicate that galaxies with stronger random stellar motions with respect to the ordered motions might be better breeding grounds for powerful radio AGNs. This would also imply that the merger events of galaxies are important in the triggering of powerful radio jets in our sample.