On the Importance of Very-light Internally-subsonic AGN Jets in Radio-mode AGN Feedback

TL;DR

This study highlights the significance of very-light, internally-subsonic AGN jets in shaping X-ray cavities and influencing galaxy cluster evolution, suggesting they deposit more energy into cluster cores than previously thought.

Contribution

First demonstration of the importance of very-light internally-subsonic jets in AGN feedback, linking jet internal Mach number to cavity shape and energy deposition.

Findings

Internally-subsonic jets produce bottom-wide cavities.

Old cavities from very-light jets are elongated perpendicular to jet direction.

Pancake-shaped ghost cavity in Perseus suggests presence of very-light jets.

Abstract

Radio-mode AGN feedback plays a key role in the evolution of galaxy groups and clusters. Its physical origin lies in the kpc-scale interaction of AGN jets with the intracluster medium. Large-scale jet simulations often initiate light internally-supersonic jets with density contrast $0.01<\eta<1$. Here we argue for the first time for the importance of very-light ($\eta<0.01$) internally-subsonic jets. We investigated the shapes of young X-ray cavities produced in a suite of hydrodynamic simulations, and found that bottom-wide cavities are always produced by internally-subsonic jets, while internally-supersonic jets inflate cylindrical, center-wide, or top-wide cavities. We found examples of real cavities with shapes analogous to those inflated in our simulations by internally-subsonic and internally-supersonic jets, suggesting a dichotomy of AGN jets according to their internal Mach numbers. We further studied the long-term cavity evolution, and found that old cavities resulted from light jets spread along the jet direction, while those produced by very light jets are significantly elongated along the perpendicular direction. The northwestern ghost cavity in Perseus is pancake-shaped, providing tentative evidence for the existence of very light jets. Our simulations show that very-light internally-subsonic jets decelerate faster and rise much slower in the ICM than light internally-supersonic jets, possibly depositing a larger fraction of jet energy to cluster cores and alleviating the problem of low coupling efficiencies found previously. The internal Mach number points to the jet's energy content, and internally-subsonic jets are energetically dominated by non-kinetic energy, such as thermal energy, cosmic rays, or magnetic fields.