Low-velocity precessing jets can explain observed morphologies in the Twin Radio Galaxy TRG J104454+354055

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that low-velocity, precessing bipolar jets from supermassive black holes can explain the complex radio morphologies observed in the rare Twin Radio Galaxy TRG J104454+354055, using 3D hydrodynamic simulations.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel explanation for the observed jet morphologies in a third TRG through 3D hydrodynamic simulations of precessing jets.

Findings

Precessing jets can reproduce observed morphologies.

Jet precession timescales are short relative to jet lifetimes.

Lense-Thirring effects may cause jet precession.

Abstract

Our understanding of large-scale radio jets in merger systems has been drastically improved in the era of VLA, VLBA/EVN, uGMRT, and MeerKAT. Twin Radio Galaxies (TRGs) are the rare interacting galaxy pairs where both supermassive black holes host kiloparsec-scale bipolar radio jets. Only recently was a third TRG discovered and it shows significantly different jet morphologies than the previous two. Due to both the extreme paucity and complexity of such systems, the launching of their jets as well as their mutual interaction during the propagation through the ambient medium are not well understood. We have performed 3D hydrodynamic simulations to study the bipolar jets in the third TRG, J104454+354055. Our study indicates that the precession of mutually tilted bipolar jets originating from the two galactic nuclei separated by tens of kiloparsecs and propagating at low velocities can explain the observed morphologies. The simulated jet precession timescales are short compared to the overall dynamical timescale of the jets and could originate from Lense-Thirring effects in the accretion disks. This approach to understanding the TRG jet dynamics could also be applied to other TRG systems with similar helical morphologies that may be discovered in the upcoming era of the SKA and its pathfinder surveys.