ACCRETION AND JET POWERS IN NEARBY ACCRETION AND JET POWERS IN NEARBY UNOBSCURED RADIO GALAXIES UNOBSCURED RADIO GALAXIES E. Trussoni (1), S. Vattakunnel (2), A. Capetti (1) (1) INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino (2) INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste A correlation has been found between the accretion and jet powers in a sample of unobscured radio galaxies (FR I and nearby low luminosity objects) showing a flattening of the optical brightness profiles in their central regions (core galaxies). The fraction of accreting power converted into kinetic energy is almost constant over 5 decades. We present the results of a similar analysis for a small sample of radio quiet objects showing a cusped power law inner brightness profile. In particular we discuss the possible correlation between the accretion and jet powers exploiting the multifrequency data available for these objects. The different properties of the core and power law samples are shortly discussed.
1 - Accretion onto SMBH plays a fundamental role in powering AGN 2 - In radio loud AGN the energetic power is mainly in relativistic jets 3 - The accreting material may originate either from a thick torus (obscured objects) or from the InterGalactic Medium (IGM, unobscured objects) 4 - There is a connection between the structure of the parent galaxy and the nuclear activity We will discuss these two main points: A - What is the relationship between the accretion power P a and the jet power P j in AGN ? Can the accretion alone support the jet power ? B - There is some relation between P a and P j, and the structure of the parent galaxy ? We consider unobscured objects with accretion from the IGM - 2 -
Early type galaxies harbouring unobscured AGN belong to two different classes depending on their optical brightness profiles (1-5) Core Sersic Galaxies (CSG) The inner optical profile is flat Radio loud Fig.1a X-ray emitters Major mergings in the past Power Law Cusped Galaxies (PCG) The inner optical profile is cusped Radio quiet or silent X-ray emitters Minor mergings in the past Fig. 1b - 3 -
Accretion Power P a Bondi model (6) for a spherical and steady accretion from the IGM P a n B M 2 BH T B -3/2 M BH : mass of the SMBH, from the M BH - correlation n B,T B : density and temperature at the Bondi radius r B, deduced from the X-ray properties of the IGM Jet Power P j a - For bright objects and/or good enough data, deduced from the cavities inflated by the jets, detected in X-ray maps (7) b - For weaker objects and/or poor data, deduced exploiting the relation betwen P j and the radio luminosity L r (8) P J L r
In these last years has been confirmed that the accretion and jet powers are connected. In particular the following strict correlation between P a and P j has been found for a sample of 27 CSG (Fig. 2) (7,9,10), extracted from the sample studied in (1) : Log P a = 1.1 Log P j – 1.9 This implies: - Almost a linear dependence: P a P j - P j 0.02 P a The jet power can be supported by accretion from the IGM Fig. 2 ~ Does a similar correlation hold also for PSG ? Does the inner structure of the parent Galaxy, and then its evolution, affect the P a – P j correlation its evolution, affect the P a – P j correlation ? - 5 -
To test this point we referred to the sample of PCG analyzed in (2) : out the 23 objects of that sample only for 9 galaxies Chandra X-ray data were good enough for a reasonable estimate of P a In these objects the X-ray emission from the IGM is quite weak with no evident cavities in the Chandra maps Accordingly, instead to deduce P j from the radio emission we have considered the radio luminosity as direct estimate of the jet power considering the correlation (7) L r P j In the following page we plot L r vs P a (Fig. 3) for the two samples and report the results of the statistical analysis where have considered the properties of the CSG and PCG separately and as a merged sinlge sample - 6 -
CSG (27 objects): Log P a = 1.45 Log L r ; P = 1.1 x rms = 0.94 CSG + PCG (36 objects): Log P a = 1.41 Log L r ; P < rms = 0.93 PCG (9 objects ) : P = 0.51 P : Probability of no correl. Fig. 3 For the CGS and CGS + PCG samples the same correlation basically holds but with quite a large scatter of the data Any correlation is found for PCG alone - 7 -
As further test we have searched possible correlations with P a of the core X-ray luminosities L X (Fig. 4) CSG : Log P a = 1.52 Log L X ; P = 1.6 x 10 -3, rms = 0.73 CSG + PCG: Log P a = 1.18 Log L X ; P = 0.008, rms = 0.92 PCG : P = 0.87 Fig. 4 For CGS and PCG the results for L X and L r vs P a are very similar Discrepancy for the merged sample: the correlation between of L X and P a has a steeper slope X-ray excess for the PCG - 8 -
Summary - The correlation P a - L r holds independently if we consider the CSG + PCG sample or CSG alone, while no correlation emerges for PCG only - The low number of PCG (9) does not allow a definitive univocal interpretation of our results (it is worth reminding however that in (7) a strict connection Pa - Pj was found for a sample of only 9 CSG, even though with better data) - A reasonable conclusion is that the conversion process of accretion power into jet kinetic energy is likely different in PGC and CSG. On the other hand the few PCG have probably a small statistical weight on the correlation of the CGS when they are included in the sample - The correlation P a – L X holds for CSG with the same slope as for P a - L r, confirming that in these objects the emission at high and low frequencies are related to the relativistic jet - 9 -
- This correlation is modified for the CSG + PCG sample. This is the consequence of the X-ray excess in PCG: we see in Figs. 3 and 4 that they have L X < erg/s (as for GSC) and at radio frequencies L r < 3 x erg/s - Again no correlation is found considering only PGS, confirming that the accretion - jet relationship is different in the two classes of galaxies - As main implication, while in CSG the accreting power is mainly converted into jet power, which emits at various frequencies, in PCG a relevant fraction is directly converted in X-ray emission (e.g. through the accretion disk) - From the above arguments there are strong clues to argue that the different evolution of these two classes of unobscured galaxies play a relevant role in ruling the energetic processes between the accretion and jets
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