Multi-object spectroscopy of CL1821+643: a dynamically relaxed cluster with a giant radio halo?

TL;DR

This study analyzes the galaxy cluster CL1821+643, revealing it to be a relaxed, massive cluster with no signs of recent merging activity, challenging existing theories about the origins of its giant radio halo.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spectroscopic analysis confirming the cluster's relaxed state and questions the link between radio halos and cluster mergers.

Findings

Cluster is dynamically relaxed with no substructures.

No evidence of recent merging activity in the cluster.

Radio halo presence remains unexplained by current models.

Abstract

We present the study of the dynamical status of the galaxy cluster CL1821+643, a rare and intriguing cool-core cluster hosting a giant radio halo. We base our analysis on new spectroscopic data for 129 galaxies acquired at the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo. We also use spectroscopic data available from the literature and photometric data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We select 120 cluster member galaxies and compute the cluster redshift <z> ~ 0.296 and the global line-of-sight velocity dispersion $\sigma_{\rm V}$ ~ 1100 km/s. The results of our analysis are consistent with CL1821+643 being a massive dynamically relaxed cluster dominated by a big and luminous elliptical at the centre of the cluster potential well. None of the tests employed to study the cluster galaxies kinematics in the 1D (velocity information), 2D (spatial information), and 3D (combined velocity and spatial information) domains is able to detect significant substructures. While this picture is in agreement with previous results based on X-ray data and on the existence of the central cool core, we do not find any evidence of a merging process responsible for the radio halo discovered in this cluster. Thus, this radio halo remains an open problem that raises doubts about our understanding of diffuse radio sources in clusters.