Search and analysis of giant radio galaxies with associated nuclei (SAGAN). VI. When jets meet filaments -- Environmental imprints on the growth of giant radio galaxies

Vol. 706
4. Extragalactic astronomy

Search and analysis of giant radio galaxies with associated nuclei (SAGAN). VI. When jets meet filaments -- Environmental imprints on the growth of giant radio galaxies

Galaxy formation relies on a number of factors spanning a wide range of physical scales, from local sites of star formation to large-scale structure. This recent work by Mahato et al. focuses on the connection between the properties of giant radio galaxies (GRGs) and the environments in which they live. The authors make use of previous work that characterized the cosmic web with a catalog of large-scale filaments from SDSS and cross-matched it with a sample of GRGs. Their results reveal an interesting trend in the alignment angle between the radio-detected jets of the GRGs and the closest filament. This angle is found to be larger in GRGs compared to lower-mass radio galaxies, which instead show random alignment. Figures A1-A3 show this behavior in three GRGs. This statistically significant trend suggests environmental coupling, whereby the jets of GRGs propagate along directions preferentially perpendicular to the filament, flowing into lower-density, void-facing regions. Moreover, this result highlights the usefulness of GRGs as tools for analyzing large-scale structure.