학술논문

Hydrodynamic Simulations of a Relativistic Jet Interacting with the Intracluster Medium: Application to Cygnus A
Document Type
Working Paper
Source
Subject
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Language
Abstract
The Fanaroff-Riley class II radio galaxy Cygnus A hosts jets which produce radio emission, X-ray cavities, cocoon shocks, and X-ray hotspots where the jet interacts with the ICM. Surrounding one hotspot is a peculiar "hole" feature which appears as a deficit in X-ray emission. We use relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of a collimated jet interacting with an inclined interface between lobe and cluster plasma to model the basic processes which may lead to such a feature. We find that the jet reflects off of the interface into a broad, turbulent flow back out into the lobe, which is dominated by gas stripped from the interface at first and from the intracluster medium itself at later times. We produce simple models of X-ray emission from the ICM, the hotspot, and the reflected jet to show that a hole of emission surrounding the hotspot as seen in Cygnus A may be produced by Doppler de-boosting of the emission from the reflected jet as seen by an observer with a sight line nearly along the axis of the outgoing material.
Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, submitted to the journal Galaxies