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Deep chandra observations of pictor A

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, ISSN: 1365-2966, Vol: 455, Issue: 4, Page: 3526-3545
2016
  • 67
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 23
    Captures
  • 5
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Citations
    67
    • Citation Indexes
      67
  • Captures
    23
  • Mentions
    5
    • References
      4
      • Wikipedia
        4
    • News Mentions
      1
      • News
        1

Most Recent News

Magnetic fields in powerful radio jets

X-ray jets from the galaxy Pictoris A. The greyscale image was taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and reveals the detailed X-ray structure of the

Article Description

We report on deep Chandra observations of the nearby broad-line radio galaxy Pictor A, which we combine with new Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) observations. The new X-ray data have a factor of 4 more exposure than observations previously presented and span a 15 yr time baseline, allowing a detailed study of the spatial, temporal and spectral properties of theAGN, jet, hotspot and lobes.We present evidence for further time variation of the jet, though the flare that we reported in previouswork remains the most significantly detected time-varying feature. We also confirm previous tentative evidence for a faint counterjet. Based on the radio through X-ray spectrum of the jet and its detailed spatial structure, and on the properties of the counterjet, we argue that inverse-Compton models can be conclusively rejected, and propose that the X-ray emission from the jet is synchrotron emission from particles accelerated in the boundary layer of a relativistic jet. For the first time, we find evidence that the bright western hotspot is also time-varying in X-rays, and we connect this to the small-scale structure in the hotspot seen in high-resolution radio observations. The new data allow us to confirm that the spectrum of the lobes is in good agreement with the predictions of an inverse-Compton model and we show that the data favour models in which the filaments seen in the radio images are predominantly the result of spatial variation of magnetic fields in the presence of a relatively uniform electron distribution.

Bibliographic Details

M. J. Hardcastle; J. L. Goodger; E. Lenc; M. Birkinshaw; D. M. Worrall; J. H. Croston; H. L. Marshall; E. S. Perlman; A. Siemiginowska; L. Stawarz

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Physics and Astronomy; Earth and Planetary Sciences

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