Why do only some Radio Galaxies acquire giant Sizes?

TL;DR

This study analyzes the morphology of giant radio galaxies to understand why only some attain such large sizes, using radio survey data to measure geometric and flux symmetry features.

Contribution

It provides a detailed morphological analysis of 58 giant radio galaxies and explores potential correlations with size and symmetry, offering new insights into their large-scale development.

Findings

Radio source symmetry does not differ between galaxies and quasars.

No evidence of size decrease with redshift.

Marginal trend of increased symmetry with larger size.

Abstract

We study the morphology of the radio emission of giant radio galaxies (GRGs), a rare type of active galaxies, in order to find new clues for the reasons of their large size. Using radio images from two sky surveys at 1.4 GHz we quantified their radio morphology by measuring the geometry (armlength, bending angle, etc.) and flux symmetry for 58 such objects. Preliminary analysis suggests that radio source symmetry does not differ between galaxies and quasars, that there is no evidence for a decrease in linear size with redshift, and only a marginal trend for increasing symmetry with larger size. A merging with data available for other such objects is expected to yield new clues on the possible reasons for their large size. We also searched radio survey images around the positions of 1059 galaxies and quasars for further giant radio sources, and present a preliminary sample of six of these.