Probing the Off-State of Cluster Giant Radio Halos

TL;DR

This study uses stacking of radio images to characterize the faint, diffuse radio emission in galaxy clusters, revealing an off-state of giant radio halos that is common in luminous X-ray clusters and has implications for magnetic fields.

Contribution

It provides the first independent confirmation of radio halo bi-modality and characterizes the low-level off-state emission in luminous galaxy clusters.

Findings

Detection of Mpc-scale diffuse radio emission in high X-ray luminosity clusters.

Low X-ray concentration clusters have higher average radio luminosity.

Most luminous clusters likely host an off-state of giant radio halos.

Abstract

We derive the best characterization to date of the properties of radio quiescent massive galaxy clusters through a statistical analysis of their average synchrotron emissivity. We stacked 105 radio images of clusters from the 843 MHz SUMSS survey, all with X-ray luminosities greater than 1.0E+44 erg/s and redshifts z < 0.2, after removing point-source contamination and rescaling to a common physical size. Each stacked cluster individually shows no significant large-scale diffuse radio emission at current sensitivity levels. Stacking of sub-samples leads to the following results: (i) clusters with L_{X} > 3.0E+44 erg/s show a 6-sigma detection of Mpc-scale diffuse emission with a 1.4 GHz luminosity of 2.4\pm0.4 x 1.0E+23 W/Hz. This is 1.5-2 times lower than the upper limits for radio quiescent clusters from the GMRT Radio Halo Survey (Venturi et al. 2008), and is the first independent confirmation of radio halo bi-modality; (ii) clusters with low X-ray concentrations have a mean radio luminosity (2.6\pm0.6 x 1.0E+23 W/Hz) that is at least twice that of high X-ray concentration clusters, and (iii) both of these detections are likely close to the low-level "off-state" of GRHs in most or all luminous X-ray clusters, and not due to contributions from a much smaller subset of "on-state" GRHs following the radio/X-ray luminosity correlation. Upcoming deep radio surveys will conclusively distinguish between these two options. We briefly discuss possible origins for the "off-state" emission and its implications for magnetic fields in most or all luminous X-ray clusters.