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Centaurus A: constraints on the nature of the giant lobe filaments from XMM-Newton observations

Centaurus A: constraints on the nature of the giant lobe filaments from XMM-Newton observations
Centaurus A: constraints on the nature of the giant lobe filaments from XMM-Newton observations
We report on deep XMM-Newton observations of the vertex filament in the southern giant lobe of the Fanaroff–Riley class I radio galaxy Centaurus A. We find no X-ray excess from the filament region and place a 3? upper limit on the 1 keV flux density of the filament of 9.6 nJy. This directly constrains the electron density and magnetic field strength in the filament. For the first time in an individual filament, we show that so long as the particle index ?2, the excess in synchrotron emissivity cannot be produced purely by excess electrons: the filament magnetic field strength must be higher than in the giant lobes as a whole, and close to or above the equipartition value for the filament. The filaments are not significantly overpressured with respect to the surrounding lobe with a pressure provided by relativistic electrons.
1365-2966
3277-3282
Wykes, Sarka
c634907c-e8a1-4308-8a87-06dd79b95ea9
Hardcastle, Martin J.
a6df461a-5e27-4800-a76a-b5ac8d6939f8
Croston, Judith
b10aa3fb-620e-4ec2-93e5-8594748d4822
Wykes, Sarka
c634907c-e8a1-4308-8a87-06dd79b95ea9
Hardcastle, Martin J.
a6df461a-5e27-4800-a76a-b5ac8d6939f8
Croston, Judith
b10aa3fb-620e-4ec2-93e5-8594748d4822

Wykes, Sarka, Hardcastle, Martin J. and Croston, Judith (2015) Centaurus A: constraints on the nature of the giant lobe filaments from XMM-Newton observations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 454 (3), 3277-3282. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2187).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We report on deep XMM-Newton observations of the vertex filament in the southern giant lobe of the Fanaroff–Riley class I radio galaxy Centaurus A. We find no X-ray excess from the filament region and place a 3? upper limit on the 1 keV flux density of the filament of 9.6 nJy. This directly constrains the electron density and magnetic field strength in the filament. For the first time in an individual filament, we show that so long as the particle index ?2, the excess in synchrotron emissivity cannot be produced purely by excess electrons: the filament magnetic field strength must be higher than in the giant lobes as a whole, and close to or above the equipartition value for the filament. The filaments are not significantly overpressured with respect to the surrounding lobe with a pressure provided by relativistic electrons.

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Centaurus A constraints on the nature of the giant lobe filaments - Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 21 September 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 October 2015
Published date: 11 December 2015
Organisations: Astronomy Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 401976
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/401976
ISSN: 1365-2966
PURE UUID: e79cc00c-550a-4a46-97ad-fdb69ba37e76

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Date deposited: 26 Oct 2016 12:37
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:02

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Contributors

Author: Sarka Wykes
Author: Martin J. Hardcastle
Author: Judith Croston

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