Giant lobes of Centaurus A as seen in radio and gamma-ray images obtained with the Fermi-LAT and Planck satellites

TL;DR

This study combines seven years of Fermi-LAT gamma-ray data with Planck radio observations to analyze the giant lobes of Centaurus A, revealing spatial variations and providing insights into magnetic fields and particle distributions within the lobes.

Contribution

It extends gamma-ray detection to higher and lower energies, confirms spatial extension beyond radio images, and explores models explaining the emission with magnetic field variations or hadronic contributions.

Findings

Gamma-ray emission extends beyond radio images.

Significant spatial variation in gamma-ray spectra.

Magnetic field strength and electron distribution derived from combined data.

Abstract

The {\gamma}-ray data of Fermi-LAT on the giant lobes of Centaurus A are analysed together with the high frequency radio data obtained with the Planck satellite. The large {\gamma}-ray photon statistics, accumulated during seven years of observations, and the recently updated Fermi collaboration software tools allow substantial extension of the detected {\gamma}-ray emission towards higher energy, up to 30 GeV, and lower energy, down to 60 MeV. Moreover, the new {\gamma}-ray data allow us to explore the spatial features of {\gamma}-ray emission of the lobes. For the north lobe, we confirm, with higher statistical significance, our earlier finding on the extension of {\gamma}-ray emission beyond the radio image. Moreover, the new analysis reveals significant spatial variation of {\gamma}-ray spectra from both lobes. On the other hand, the Planck observations at microwave frequencies contain important information on spectra of synchrotron emission in the cutoff region, and thus allow model-independent derivation of the strength of the magnetic field and the distribution of relativistic electrons based on the combined {\gamma}-ray and radio data. The interpretation of multiwavelength spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the lobes within a pure leptonic model requires strong enhancement of the magnetic field at the edge of the south lobe. Alternatively, a more complex, leptonic-hadronic model of the {\gamma}-ray emission, postulating a non-negligible contribution of the {\pi}^0 -decay component at highest energies, can explain the {\gamma}-ray data with a rather homogeneous distribution of the magnetic field over the giant lobes.