Radio Galaxy Zoo: The Distortion of Radio Galaxies by Galaxy Clusters.
2019
We study the impact of cluster environment on the morphology of a sample of 4304 extended
radio galaxiesfrom
Radio GalaxyZoo. 87% of the sample lies within a projected 15 Mpc of an optically identified cluster.
Brightest cluster galaxies(BCGs) are more likely to be radio sources than other cluster members are, and are also moderately bent. The surface density as a function of separation from cluster center of non-BCG
radio galaxiesfollows a power law with index $-1.10\pm0.03$ out to $10~r_{500}$ ($\sim 7$ Mpc), which is steeper than the corresponding distribution for optically-selected
galaxies. Non-BCG
radio galaxiesare statistically more bent the closer they are to the cluster center. Within the inner $1.5~r_{500}$ ($\sim 1$ Mpc) of a cluster, non-BCG
radio galaxiesare statistically more bent in high mass clusters than in low mass clusters. Together, we find that non-BCG sources are statistically more bent in environments that exert greater
ram pressure. We use the orientation of bent
radio galaxiesas an indicator of
galaxyorbits, and find that they are preferentially in radial orbits. Away from clusters, there is a large population of bent
radio galaxies, limiting their use as cluster locators; however, they are still located within statistically overdense regions. We investigate the asymmetry in the tail length of sources that have their tails aligned along the radius vector from the cluster center, and find that the length of the inward-pointing tail is weakly suppressed for sources close to the center of the cluster.
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