Another shock for the Bullet cluster, and the source of seed electrons for radio relics

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 449; no. 2; pp. 1486 - 1494
• Main Authors: Shimwell, Timothy W., Markevitch, Maxim, Brown, Shea, Feretti, Luigina, Gaensler, B. M., Johnston-Hollitt, M., Lage, Craig, Srinivasan, Raghav
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Oxford University Press 11-05-2015
• Subjects: Acceleration; Astronomy; Bulbs; Bullets; Clusters; Diffusion; Electrons; Projectiles; Radio; Radio astronomy; Seeds; Stars & galaxies; Surface brightness; X-rays; Australia; radiation mechanisms: non-thermal; radio continuum general; galaxies: clusters: individual: 1E 0657-55.8; galaxies: clusters: intracluster medium; acceleration of particles; shock waves
• ISSN: 0035-8711; 1365-2966
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stv334

With Australia Telescope Compact Array observations, we detect a highly elongated Mpc-scale diffuse radio source on the eastern periphery of the Bullet cluster 1E 0657−55.8, which we argue has the positional, spectral and polarimetric characteristics of a radio relic. This powerful relic (2.3 ± 0.1 × 1025 W Hz−1) consists of a bright northern bulb and a faint linear tail. The bulb emits 94 per cent of the observed radio flux and has the highest surface brightness of any known relic. Exactly coincident with the linear tail, we find a sharp X-ray surface brightness edge in the deep Chandra image of the cluster – a signature of a shock front in the hot intracluster medium (ICM), located on the opposite side of the cluster to the famous bow shock. This new example of an X-ray shock coincident with a relic further supports the hypothesis that shocks in the outer regions of clusters can form relics via diffusive shock (re-)acceleration. Intriguingly, our new relic suggests that seed electrons for reacceleration are coming from a local remnant of a radio galaxy, which we are lucky to catch before its complete disruption. If this scenario, in which a relic forms when a shock crosses a well-defined region of the ICM polluted with aged relativistic plasma – as opposed to the usual assumption that seeds are uniformly mixed in the ICM – is also the case for other relics, this may explain a number of peculiar properties of peripheral relics.