Speaker
Description
Bent-tail radio galaxies (BTRGs) are a subclass of radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) characterised by their distinctive curved radio lobes. They are mostly found in dense environments, which raises a question of how environmental effects such as ram pressure influence the peculiar morphology that they exhibit. It is also not clear whether their AGN duty cycle, which is the ratio of the time intervals during which the central AGN is active and quiescent, is mainly governed by the same external factors. We use archival radio data from the LoTSS DR2 survey at 144 MHz, FIRST at 1.4 GHz, and the VLASS at 3 GHz to conduct a comprehensive study of 87 wide angle tails, 39 narrow angle tails, and 4 Head-tails BTRGs. We derived their core and integrated spectral indices as well as core prominence to help determine their AGN activity. We used the SDSS spectroscopic redshifts of the optical host galaxy in order to derive the BTRG linear sizes and radio luminosities. We find that the majority of the BTRGs have an active radio core. We also noticed structural and flux density asymmetries between radio lobes, which may relate to environmental interactions. Further work will investigate these trends across the full sample to assess how host environments influence BTRG morphology and duty cycle.
| Stream | Science or Engineering |
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