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  • Letter
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A snapshot of the oldest active galactic nuclei feedback phases

Nature Astronomy volume 5, pages 1261–1267 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Active galactic nuclei inject large amounts of energy into their host galaxies and surrounding environment, shaping their properties and evolution1,2. In particular, active-galactic-nuclei jets inflate cosmic-ray lobes, which can rise buoyantly as light ‘bubbles’ in the surrounding medium3, displacing and heating the encountered thermal gas and thus halting its spontaneous cooling. These bubbles have been identified in a wide range of systems4,5. However, due to the short synchrotron lifetime of electrons, the most advanced phases of their evolution have remained observationally unconstrained, preventing us from fully understand their coupling with the external medium, and thus active galactic nuclei feedback. Simple subsonic hydrodynamic models6,7 predict that the pressure gradients, naturally present around the buoyantly rising bubbles, transform them into toroidal structures, resembling mushroom clouds in a stratified atmosphere. The way and timescales on which these tori will eventually disrupt depend on various factors including magnetic fields and plasma viscosity8,9. Here we report observations below 200 MHz, sensitive to the oldest radio-emitting particles, showing the late evolution of multiple generations of cosmic-ray active-galactic-nuclei bubbles in a galaxy group with unprecedented level of detail. The bubbles’ buoyancy power can efficiently offset the radiative cooling of the intragroup medium. However, the bubbles still have not thoroughly mixed with the thermal gas, after hundreds of million years, probably under the action of magnetic fields.

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Fig. 1: LOFAR images showing the complex non-thermal radio emission in the galaxy group Nest200047.
Fig. 2: Lightly smoothed 0.5–2.3 keV eROSITA X-ray image of the galaxy group Nest200047 showing the fine X-ray substructure in the core of the group.
Fig. 3: Spectral-index map in the range 53–144 MHz of the galaxy group Nest200047.

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Data availability

The radio observations are available in the LOFAR long-term archive (https://lta.lofar.eu/) and radio images are available at https://doi.org/10.20371/INAF/DS/2021_00002. The X-ray datasets are not yet publicly available. Their proprietary scientific exploitation rights were granted by the project funding agencies (Roscosmos and DLR) to two consortia led by MPE (Germany) and IKI (Russia), respectively. The SRG–eROSITA all-sky survey data will be released publicly after a minimum period of two years. The exact release date for the data belonging to the consortium led by IKI is yet to be decided. All other data and figures within this paper are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The codes that support the figures within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

M. Brienza sincerely thanks F. Santoro, K. Rajpurohit and F. Vazza for their help and very useful discussions. M. Brienza and A. Bonafede acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC-Stg) DRANOEL (Deciphering Radio Non-thermal Emission), no 714245. M. Brienza acknowledges support by the ERC-Stg project MAGCOW (The Magnetised Cosmic Web), no 714196. A. Bonafede acknowledges support from the MIUR (Ministero dell'Istruzione dell'Università e della Ricerca) grant FARE (Framework per l'Attrazione e il Rafforzamento Delle Eccellenze) “SMS”. R.J.v.W. acknowledges support from the ERC Starting Grant ClusterWeb 804208. A. Botteon acknowledges support from the VIDI research programme with project number 639.042.729, which is financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). A.S. is supported by the Women In Science Excel programme of the NWO and acknowledges the World Premier Research Center Initiative and the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) for the continued hospitality. The Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) is supported financially by NWO. M. Brüggen acknowledges support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under Germany’s Excellence Strategy (EXC 2121 “Quantum Universe”) 390833306. S.J.D.P. would like to acknowledge support from the European Research Council advanced grant H2020-ERC-2016-ADG-74302 under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme. F.G. and G.B. acknowledge support from INAF mainstream project ‘Galaxy Clusters Science with LOFAR’ 1.05.01.86.05. I.B., R.B. and R.S. thank TUBITAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey), IKI, KFU (Kazan Federal University) and AST for partial support in using RTT150 (the Russian–Turkish 1.5 m telescope in Antalya). The work of I.B. was funded by the grant 671-2020-0052 to Kazan Federal University. LOFAR, designed and constructed by ASTRON, has facilities in several countries, which are owned by various parties (each with their own funding sources), and are collectively operated by the International LOFAR Telescope Foundation under a joint scientific policy. The International LOFAR Telescope Foundation resources have benefited from the following recent major funding sources: CNRS-INSU (Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers), Observatoire de Paris and Université d’Orléans, France; BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research), MIWF-NRW (Ministeriums für Kultur und Wissenschaft in Nordrhein-Westfalen) and MPG (Max Planck Society), Germany; Science Foundation Ireland, Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Ireland; NWO, the Netherlands; the Science and Technology Facilities Council, United Kingdom; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland and The Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Italy. Part of this work was carried out on the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of the SURF Cooperative through grant e-infra 160022 and 160152. The LOFAR software and dedicated reduction packages on https://github.com/apmechev/GRID_LRT were deployed on the e-infrastructure by the LOFAR e-infragroup, consisting of J.B.R. Oonk (ASTRON and Leiden Observatory), A.P. Mechev (Leiden Observatory) and T. Shimwell (ASTRON) with support from N. Danezi (SURFsara) and C. Schrijvers (SURFsara). The Jülich LOFAR Long Term Archive and the German LOFAR network are both coordinated and operated by the Jülich Supercomputing Centre and computing resources on the supercomputer JUWELS at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre were provided by the Gauss Centre for supercomputing e.V (Eingetragener Verein). (grant CHTB00) through the John von Neumann Institute for Computing. This research made use of the University of Hertfordshire high-performance computing facility and the LOFAR UK computing facility located at the University of Hertfordshire and supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) (ST/P000096/1), and of the Italian LOFAR IT computing infrastructure supported and operated by INAF, and by the Physics Department of Turin University (under an agreement with Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Fisica Spaziale) at the C3S Supercomputing Centre, Italy. This work is based on observations with the eROSITA telescope onboard the SRG space observatory. The SRG observatory was built by Roskosmos in the interests of the Russian Academy of Sciences represented by IKI in the framework of the Russian Federal Space Program, with the participation of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR). The eROSITA X-ray telescope was built by a consortium of German Institutes led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), and supported by DLR. The SRG spacecraft was designed, built, launched and is operated by the Lavochkin Association and its subcontractors. The science data are downlinked via the Deep Space Network Antennae in Bear Lakes, Ussurijsk and Baikonur, funded by Roskosmos. The eROSITA data used in this work were converted to calibrated event lists using the eSASS software system developed by the German eROSITA Consortium and analysed using proprietary data reduction software developed by the Russian eROSITA Consortium. This research made use of APLpy, an open-source plotting package for Python hosted at: http://aplpy.github.com.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    M. Brienza & A. Bonafede

  2. INAF - Istituto di Radio Astronomia, Bologna, Italy

    M. Brienza, F. de Gasperin, A. Bonafede & G. Brunetti

  3. ASTRON, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Dwingeloo, the Netherlands

    T. W. Shimwell

  4. Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands

    T. W. Shimwell, A. Botteon, H. J. A. Röttgering, R. J. van Weeren, S. Mandal & A. Simionescu

  5. Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    F. de Gasperin, A. Bonafede & M. Brüggen

  6. Department of Astronomy and Satellite Geodesy, Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia

    I. Bikmaev

  7. Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, Kazan, Russia

    I. Bikmaev

  8. Space Research Institute (IKI), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    R. Burenin, E. Churazov, I. Khabibullin, N. Lyskova & R. Sunyaev

  9. INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Pino Torinese, Italy

    A. Capetti

  10. Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching bei München, Germany

    E. Churazov, I. Khabibullin & R. Sunyaev

  11. Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, UK

    M. J. Hardcastle

  12. INAF- Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica (IASF) - Milano, Milan, Italy

    F. Gastaldello

  13. Astronomy & Astrophysics Section, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin, Ireland

    S. J. D. Purser

  14. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    A. Simionescu

  15. Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

    A. Simionescu

  16. GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, 5 place Jules Janssen, Meudon, France

    C. Tasse

  17. USN, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, PSL, UO, Nançay, France

    C. Tasse

  18. Centre for Radio Astronomy Techniques and Technologies, Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    C. Tasse

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  1. M. Brienza
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  2. T. W. Shimwell
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  3. F. de Gasperin
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  17. R. J. van Weeren
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  18. F. Gastaldello
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  19. S. Mandal
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  21. A. Simionescu
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  22. C. Tasse
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M. Brienza coordinated the research, performed the radio imaging and radio analysis and wrote the manuscript. T.W.S coordinated the LOFAR HBA data processing and helped coordinate the project. F.d.G. led the LOFAR LBA observing proposal and performed the data reduction. A. Bonafede helped with the analysis of the radio data and with coordination of the project. A. Botteon helped with the LOFAR HBA data processing and with manuscript revision. M. Brüggen and G.B. helped with interpretation of the source and with manuscript revision. A.C. contributed to the system identification and the analysis of the optical properties of the system. M.J.H. helped with the LOFAR HBA data processing, with interpretation of the source and with manuscript revision. E.C., I.K. and N.L. analyzed the SRG/eROSITA data and contributed to interpretation of the results and writing the manuscript. I.B. performed the optical observations and analysis of the source and contributed to the interpretation of the results and writing the manuscript. R.B. and R.S. contributed to the interpretation of the results and writing the manuscript. R.J.v.W. helped with the LOFAR HBA data processing and with manuscript revision. F.G. helped with the interpretation of the results and manuscript revision. S.M. and A.S. helped revise the manuscript. C.T.helped with the LOFAR HBA data processing. S.P. led the LOFAR HBA observing proposal.

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Correspondence to M. Brienza.

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Brienza, M., Shimwell, T.W., de Gasperin, F. et al. A snapshot of the oldest active galactic nuclei feedback phases. Nat Astron 5, 1261–1267 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01491-0

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