Large-scale HI in nearby radio galaxies (II): the nature of classical low-power radio sources

TL;DR

This study investigates the large-scale neutral hydrogen gas in nearby low-power radio galaxies, revealing differences in gas properties between compact and extended radio sources and suggesting recurrent AGN activity in early-type galaxies.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of HI gas in a complete sample of low-power radio galaxies, highlighting the relationship between gas morphology, radio source size, and fueling mechanisms.

Findings

Extended FR-I sources lack large HI reservoirs and are not merger-driven.

Compact radio sources often have large HI discs/rings, indicating different fueling.

HI properties are similar to radio-quiet early-type galaxies, suggesting recurrent AGN activity.

Abstract

An important aspect of solving the long-standing question as to what triggers various types of Active Galactic Nuclei involves a thorough understanding of the overall properties and formation history of their host galaxies. This is the second in a series of papers that systematically study the large-scale properties of cold neutral hydrogen (HI) gas in nearby radio galaxies. The main goal is to investigate the importance of gas-rich galaxy mergers and interactions among radio-loud AGN. In this paper we present results of a complete sample of classical low-power radio galaxies. We find that extended Fanaroff & Riley type-I radio sources are generally not associated with gas-rich galaxy mergers or ongoing violent interactions, but occur in early-type galaxies without large (> 10^8 M_sun) amounts of extended neutral hydrogen gas. In contrast, enormous discs/rings of HI gas (with sizes up to 190 kpc and masses up to 2 x 10^10 M_sun) are detected around the host galaxies of a significant fraction of the compact radio sources in our sample. This segregation in HI mass with radio source size likely indicates that these compact radio sources are either confined by large amounts of gas in the central region, or that their fuelling is inefficient and different from the fuelling process of classical FR-I radio sources. To first order, the overall HI properties of our complete sample (detection rate, mass and morphology) appear similar to those of radio-quiet early-type galaxies. If confirmed by better statistics, this would imply that low-power radio-AGN activity may be a short and recurrent phase that occurs at some point during the lifetime of many early-type galaxies.