Complex Kinematics of Nebular Gas in Active Galaxies Centered in Cooling X-Ray Atmospheres

Abstract

[O ii ] emission maps obtained with the Keck Cosmic Web Imager are presented for four galaxies centered in cooling X-ray cluster atmospheres. Nebular emission extending over tens of kiloparsecs is found in systems covering a broad range of atmospheric cooling rates, cluster masses, and dynamical states. A262's central galaxy hosts a kiloparsec-scale disk. The nebular gas in RX J0820.9+0752 is offset and redshifted with respect to the central galaxy by 10–20 kpc and 150 km s ^−1 , respectively. The nebular gases in PKS 0745−191 and A1835 are being churned to higher velocity dispersion by X-ray bubbles and jets. The churned gas is enveloped by larger-scale, lower-velocity-dispersion (quiescent) nebular emission. The mean line-of-sight speeds of the churned gas, quiescent gas, and the central galaxy each differ by up to ∼150 km s ^−1 ; nebular speeds upward of 800 km s ^−1 are found. Gases with outwardly rising speeds upward of several hundred kilometers per second are consistent with being advected behind and being lifted by the rising bubbles. The peculiar motion between the galaxy, nebular gas, and perhaps the hot atmosphere from which it presumably condensed is affecting the bubble dynamics and may strongly affect thermally unstable cooling, the dispersal of jet energy, and the angular momentum of gas accreting onto the galaxies and their nuclear black holes.

Keywords

• Brightest cluster galaxies
• Emission nebulae
• Cooling flows
• Intracluster medium
• Galaxy kinematics
• X-ray active galactic nuclei