The Origins of X‐Ray Emission from the Hot Spots of FR II Radio Sources
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2004 papers
Abstract
We use new and archival Chandra data to investigate the X-ray emission from a large sample of compact hotspots of FRII radio galaxies and quasars from the 3C catalogue. We find that only the most luminous hotspots tend to be in good agreement with the predictions of a synchrotron self-Compton model with equipartition magnetic fields. At low hotspot luminosities inverse-Compton predictions are routinely exceeded by several orders of magnitude, but this is never seen in more luminous hotspots. We argue that an additional synchrotron component of the X-ray emission is present in low-luminosity hotspots, and that the hotspot luminosity controls the ability of a given hotspot to produce synchrotron X-rays, probably by determining the high-energy cutoff of the electron energy spectrum. It remains plausible that all hotspots are close to the equipartition condition.
Related Papers
- → The particle content of low-power radio galaxies in groups and clusters(2014)66 cited
- → Io Hot Spot Distribution Detected by Juno/JIRAM(2022)22 cited
- → On the applicability of the equipartition theorem(2010)4 cited
- → The interaction of hot spots(1974)5 cited
- → Equipartition of energy for the wave equation associated to the Dunkl-Cherednik Laplacian(2008)4 cited