A&A 379, L1-L4 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20011338
G. Ghisellini1 - A. Celotti2
1 -
Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate, Italy
2 - SISSA/ISAS, via Beirut 2-4, 34014 Trieste, Italy
Received 2 July 2001 / Accepted 18 July 2001
Abstract
In the radio - host galaxy optical luminosity plane
FR I and FR II radio-galaxies are clearly divided.
Since the optical luminosity of an elliptical galaxy is an indication
of the mass of its central black hole, we propose that the
FR I-FR II dividing luminosity is a function of the mass of the
black hole powering the active nucleus.
Furthermore, as the radio power gives an estimate of the total kinetic power
carried by the jet, the FR I-FR II separation can be re-interpreted as
occurring
at a constant ratio between the jet power and the black hole mass.
There is also convincing evidence of a correlation between the radio
power and the luminosity in narrow emission lines. As the latter
results from photoionization by the radiation produced by accretion, we
can estimate the ionizing luminosity and find that the separation
luminosity can be also re-expressed as a constant accretion rate
between
-10-3 of the Eddington one.
This possibly regulates the accretion mode and the consequent
presence and characteristics of nuclear outflows.
Key words: galaxies: jets - galaxies: nuclei - radio continuum: galaxies
Among the strongest phenomenological clues on radio sources origin and
physics is the recognition by Fanaroff & Riley (1974) that the
majority of
radio galaxies can be classified into two morphological types
(FR I and FR II) according to where most of the luminosity is
radiated, i.e. edge darkened and edge brightened sources, and that
this division rather neatly translates into a separation in radio
power (respectively below and above
ergs-1 Hz-1 at 178 MHz).
This division has
become even clearer and sharper when it has been found by Ledlow &
Owen (1994, 1996) to be a function of the optical luminosity of the
host galaxy, in the sense of increasing dividing radio luminosity with
increasing optical luminosity of the host.
These pieces of evidence have prompted several physical interpretations, which invoke either or both the interaction of the jet with the ambient medium or/and nuclear intrinsic properties of the accretion and jet formation processes. Among the former models the duality has been attributed to the dynamics of a slowing jet in the ambient gas pressure (either the whole jet or only the hot spot advance, Bicknell 1995; Gopal-Krishna & Wiita 1988, 2001), while the latter ones include the possible different content of the jet plasma (electron-positron pairs or normal electron-proton plasma), or the black hole spin (Reynolds et al. 1996; Baum et al. 1995; Meier 1999).
However there is a further ingredient which can be added to this picture, namely the possibility of associating an estimate of the central black hole mass to both the luminosity of the bulge component in the host galaxies, as proposed by Kormendy & Richstone (1995) and by Magorrian et al. (1998), and the galaxy stellar velocity dispersion following the work by Ferrarese & Merrit (2000) and Gebhardt et al. (2000). This information is a powerful new tool for tackling the long standing problem of the black hole/galaxy formation, and also provides us with elements to estimate the combination of accretion rate and radiative efficiency of the nucleus of the active galaxies.
Interesting results have been already found in this context in connection with the radio quite vs. radio loud (possible) dichotomy, where the latter objects appear to be associated with higher mass black holes when objects of the two classes are chosen to have similar optical nuclear (AGN) luminosity (McLure & Dunlop 2001).
Here, we focus on the issue of the dichotomy between FR I vs. FR II radio-galaxies in the radio power - host galaxy magnitude plane, taking advantage of the new information on the black hole mass and the indications of connections between the observed radio luminosity and the intrinsic jet power and the luminosity dissipated in the accreting matter flow. In other words through these correlations we translate the separation between FR I and FR II into a critical value of the mass accretion rate.
The key steps (and assumptions) of our derivation are the following. (i) The conversion between host optical magnitude and black hole mass; (ii) the association of the radio luminosity to the jet kinetic power; (iii) the connection of the radio luminosity with the optical luminosity responsible for the photoionization of the [OII] narrow emission lines. The details and results for each of these three steps are the content of the next section. In Sect. 3 we discuss our findings and in Sect. 4 we present our conclusions.
For the conversion of host galaxy optical magnitude into central black hole
mass
we adopt the relation presented in McLure & Dunlop (2001).
Specifically this is expressed in terms of the absolute optical
R-band magnitude of the host galaxy MR as
![]() |
(1) |
In the following we use the connection between the jet radio power and intrinsic nuclear luminosities. For an assumed efficiency this will allow us to re-express the radio luminosity vs. host galaxy magnitude plane in terms of mass accretion rate vs. black hole mass.
![]() |
Figure 1:
The radio jet power - host optical magnitude plane with the
line dividing FR I from FR II (dashed line, from Ledlow & Owen 1996).
Triangles: FR II; circles: FR I.
The two axis have been re-expressed as jet power vs. black hole mass
(right and upper axis).
The two diagonal solid lines represent
![]() ![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
Let us then start considering the relation between radio power and
kinetic power output of the jet.
It has been found that the radio
luminosity gives an estimate of the average power transported by the
jet to the outer lobes.
In particular, several authors (Rawlings & Saunders 1991;
Rawlings 1992; Willott et al. 1999)
have found significant correlations between the radio luminosity
(and/or the luminosity in narrow lines) and the jet kinetic
power
.
Here we have adopted the correlation reported by Willott et al. (1999),
namely:
![]() |
(2) |
![]() |
(3) |
Finally, let us estimate the nuclear radiative output, by
considering the well established relation between the luminosity in
narrow emission lines, believed to result from photoionization by
the nuclear (accreting) radiation
,
and the radio power.
This appears to be particularly significant in the case of the
[OII] emission - while part of the [OIII] luminosity might be affected
by obscuration (Baum & Heckman 1989; Browne & Jackson 1992, but see also
Jackson & Rawlings 1997).
This relation has been presented by several
authors (Saunders et al. 1989; Rawlings 1992; Willott et al. 1999).
We consider here again the results by Willott et al. (1999) and adopt the
relation
![]() |
(4) |
![]() |
(5) |
![]() |
Figure 2:
The radio jet power - host optical magnitude plane with the line
sharply dividing FR I from FR II (dashed line, from Ledlow & Owen 1996).
According to reasonably well established correlations this plane
is equivalent to an accretion power vs. black hole mass plane
(right and upper axis).
The central diagonal line represents
![]() |
Open with DEXTER |
We find that the separation in FR I/FR II morphology and power appears to occur at a certain value of the luminosity over black hole mass ratio. Although we neglected the significant dispersions of the assumed correlations, note that these would imply a fuzzier separation between the two classes, but would not alter the average behaviour we consider here. In the following we speculate about possible interpretations of this finding.
It is tantalizing to speculate that the primary reason of the
FR I-FR II dichotomy lies in the different nature of their accretion
disks. The found value of
suggests a critical value of
,
the accretion rate in
Eddington units, for which the mode of accretion changes
(within the uncertainties of the above correlations, e.g. Willott et al. 1999).
This change might correspond to the
transition from a standard optically thick geometrically thin
efficient Shakura-Sunyaev (1973) disk to a radiatively
inefficient optically thin flow as an ion supported torus (Rees et al. 1982) in the form of e.g. an advection dominated accretion flow
(ADAF, see e.g. Narayan et al. 1997), adiabatic
inflow-outflow (ADIOS, Blandford & Begelman 1999) or a
convection dominated flow (CDAF, Narayan et al.
2000).
If
originates by the dissipation of
the accretion power,
and if the efficiency
is constant, at least within
the FR II population,
we have that the FR I-FR II division line is quantitatively
described by
![]() |
(6) |
But how could be the accretion mode affect the large scale structure of the radio galaxies?
Observationally, we know that the structures of the parsec scale jet
of FR I and FR II are very similar and no difference in their
velocities appears to be present at these scales
(e.g. Giovannini et al. 2001). On the other hand, it is believed that
on the kpc scale FR I jets have velocities smaller than FR II jets
(e.g. Begelman 1982; Bicknell 1984; Laing 1993): mildly relativistic
transonic jets could be more subject to Kelvin-Helmoltz
instabilities, leading to the typical FR I morphology (it is
conceivable that the deceleration is first due to the interaction with
circum-jet material). However it is not clear at what scale an FR I
jet decelerates.
Indeed, high values of the bulk Lorentz factor
(
10-15) are required to account for the spectral energy distribution
of high energy peak BL Lac objects (HBL) which are believed to be FR I
whose jet is aligned with the line of sight (Ghisellini et al. 1998;
Tavecchio et al. 1998). But the very same objects do not show the
extreme superluminal motion seen in the more powerful blazars thought
to be FR II seen end-on (see e.g. Marscher 1999; Jorstad et al. 2001). It is thus possible that either deceleration occurs
between say a fraction of a parsec, where most of the emission is
produced, and the VLBI parsec scale, or that HBL are preferentially
seen at angles smaller than
(resulting in a lower apparent
superlumimal velocity). Independently of the cause, in this scenario
FR I jets start highly relativistic and decelerate between the subpc
and the kpc scales.
Indeed this is a crucial
ingredient in the model proposed by Bicknell (1995), who points to the
environment and the consequent deceleration as the main cause of the
FR I-FR II dichotomy.
In this context, our findings suggest that it might be also the accretion process itself to play a key role in the deceleration and dichotomic behaviour, by affecting the pc-kpc scale environment. Although at this point it might be premature to single out a consistent model linking the accretion mode and the jet behaviour on the pc-kpc scale, one could speculatively attribute it to the presence of a wind - produced by the disk itself and interacting with and slowing down the relativistic jet - becoming more important for lower accretion rates, as predicted by some accretion scenarios (see above and also numerical simulations by Stone et al. 1999). We can only speculate about the expected signatures of the interaction of a wind and a relativistic jet. This might lead to the formation of shocks (similar to the analog external shocks in gamma-ray bursts) and the efficient conversion of the bulk kinetic energy into radiation (see e.g. Dermer 1999). FR I radio galaxies - and their aligned counterparts BL Lacs - could therefore be more efficient radiators than FR II radio galaxies and emission line blazars (although with a smaller absolute emitted power).
Since for a given mass the accretion luminosity in low radiative
efficiency flows is expected to increase with
(see e.g. Narayan et al. 1997)
this scenario can naturally account
for the lack of intense broad emission lines in FR I sources
and BL Lac objects (but allowing some sources, as BL Lac itself,
to show broad emission lines, albeit weak).
Note that in this case the absence of broad lines would not
be ascribed to obscuration
(which remains a possibility in FR II sources), but to the weak level
of the ionizing continuum, as suggested by the detection of
non-thermal nuclei in HST images of FR I sources
(Chiaberge et al. 2000).
We have shown that the FR I-FR II dividing line in the radio luminosity vs optical host galaxy luminosity can be re-expressed as a line of constant ratio between the jet and/or the disk accretion power and the Eddington luminosity. This suggests that the FR I-FR II dichotomy could be controlled by the properties of the underlying accretion process more than (or in addition to) a different environment.
The specific value of the division,
,
could correspond to a change in the accretion
mode.
Since FR I have, on average, larger black hole masses, they might be older or have accreted at a greater rate in the past (through e.g. mergings), and therefore it is conceivable to argue that at least a fraction of them were FR II radio-galaxies in the past. This might account for the different evolution properties of the two classes (see e.g. Urry & Padovani 1995).
Acknowledgements
We thank S. Campana and G. Giovannini for discussions. A. C. thanks the Italian MURST and ASI for financial support.