GIANT LOBES OF CENTAURUS A RADIO GALAXY OBSERVED WITH THE SUZAKU X-RAY SATELLITE

We report on Suzaku observations of selected regions within the southern giant lobe of the radio galaxy Centaurus A. In our analysis we focus on distinct X-ray features detected with the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer within the range 0.5-10 keV, some of which are likely associated with fine structure o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2013-03, Vol.766 (1), p.1-19
Main Authors: Stawarz, L, Tanaka, Y T, Madejski, G, O'Sullivan, S P, Cheung, C C, FEAIN, I J, Fukazawa, Y, Gandhi, P, Hardcastle, M J, Kataoka, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acceleration
Active galaxies
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Astrophysics,ASTRO
Imaging spectrometers
Lobes
Photons
Radio galaxies
Statistics
X-rays
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Summary:We report on Suzaku observations of selected regions within the southern giant lobe of the radio galaxy Centaurus A. In our analysis we focus on distinct X-ray features detected with the X-ray Imaging Spectrometer within the range 0.5-10 keV, some of which are likely associated with fine structure of the lobe revealed by recent high-quality radio intensity and polarization maps. With the available photon statistics, we find that the spectral properties of the detected X-ray features are equally consistent with thermal emission from hot gas with temperatures kT > 1 keV, or with a power-law radiation continuum characterized by photon indices [Gamma] ~ 2.0 [+ OR -] 0.5. Although tentative, our findings potentially imply that the structure of the extended lobes in active galaxies is likely to be highly inhomogeneous and non-uniform, with magnetic reconnection and turbulent acceleration processes continuously converting magnetic energy to internal energy of the plasma particles, leading to possibly significant spatial and temporal variations in the plasma beta parameter around the volume-averaged equilibrium condition beta ~ 1.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/766/1/48