New filamentary remnant radio emission and duty cycle constraints in the radio galaxy NGC 6086

Abstract

Radio galaxies are a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in which accretion onto the supermassive black hole releases energy into the environment via relativistic jets. The jets are not constantly active throughout the life of the host galaxy and alternate between active and quiescent phases. Remnant radio galaxies are detected during a quiescent phase and define a class of unique sources that can be used to constrain the AGN duty cycle. We present, for the first time, a spatially resolved radio analysis of the radio galaxy associated with the galaxy NGC 6086 down to 144 MHz and constraints on the spectral age of the diffuse emission to investigate the duty cycle and evolution of the source. We used three new low-frequency, high-sensitivity observations; the first was performed with the Low Frequency Array at 144 MHz and the other two with the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at 400 MHz and 675 MHz, respectively. To these, we add two Very Large Array archival observations at higher frequencies (1400 and 4700 MHz). In the new observations in the frequency range 144–675 MHz, we detect a second pair of larger lobes and three regions within the remnant emission with a filamentary morphology. We analysed the spectral index trend in the inner remnant lobes and see systematically steeper values (αlow∼1.1–1.3) at the lower frequencies compared to the gigahertz frequencies (αhigh∼0.8–0.9). Steeper spectral indices are found in the newly detected outer lobes (up to αouter∼2.1), as expected if they trace a previous phase of activity of the AGN. However, the differences between the spectra of the two outer lobes suggest different dynamical evolutions within the intra-group medium during their expansion and/or different magnetic field values. Using a single-injection radiative model and assuming equipartition conditions, we place constraints on the age of the inner and outer lobes and derive the duty cycle of the source. We estimate that the duration of the two active phases was 45 Myr and 18 Myr and the duration of the two inactive phases was 66 Myr and 33 Myr. This results in a total active time of ton ∼ 39%. The filamentary structures have a steep spectral index (∼1) without any spectral index trend, and only one of them shows a steepening in the spectrum. Their origin is not yet clear, but they may have formed due to the compression of the plasma or due to magnetic field substructures.

What Have We Learned about the Life Cycle of Radio Galaxies from New Radio Surveys

“…This is a major limitation because without understanding more about these phases, we cannot time the full life cycle of radio AGN. Because the observations are so time consuming, the studies of these objects have been, until recently, mostly limited to single cases, often serendipitously discovered, or to small samples (see [15,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] to mention some examples). However, we have now entered a new era with new possibilities to select remnant and restarted radio sources over a larger area of the sky and using multiple selection criteria.…”