Interaction of Jets with the ISM of Radio Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper uses 3D simulations to study how light hypersonic jets interact with the complex interstellar medium in elliptical galaxies, revealing four key evolutionary phases relevant to young radio sources.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation framework capturing the four generic phases of jet-ISM interaction in elliptical galaxies, applicable to GPS/CSS radio source stages.

Findings

Identification of four distinct evolutionary phases of jet-ISM interaction.

Visualization of radio and X-ray emissions during different phases.

Insights into jet disruption and collimation processes.

Abstract

We present three dimensional simulations of the interaction of a light hypersonic jet with an inhomogeneous thermal and turbulently supported disk in an elliptical galaxy, including Radio and multi-band X-ray visualisations. These simulations are applicable to the GPS/CSS phase of some extragalactic radio sources. We identify four generic phases in the evolution of such a jet with the interstellar medium. The first is a `flood and channel'' phase, dominated by complex jet interactions with the dense cloudy medium close to the nucleus. A spherical, energy driven, bubble phase follows, where the bubble is larger than the disk scale, but the jet remains fully disrupted close to the nucleus. Then in a rapid, jet break--out phase, the jet breaks free of the last obstructing dense clouds, becomes collimated and pierces the more or less spherical bubble. In the final classical phase, the jet propagates in a momentum-dominated fashion similar to jets in single component hot haloes, leading to the classical jet -- cocoon -- bow-shock structure.