CosmoDRAGoN III: Shaping the Afterlife -- How Progenitors and Environments Sculpt Radio Galaxy Remnants
Georgia S.C. Stewart, Stanislav S. Shabala, Patrick M. Yates-Jones, Ross J. Turner, Raffaella Morganti, Martin G. H. Krause, O. Ivy Wong, Chris Power, and Martin J. Hardcastle

TL;DR
This study uses 3D hydrodynamic simulations to explore how progenitor properties and environments influence the morphology and spectral evolution of radio galaxy remnants, highlighting observational biases and detection prospects.
Contribution
It provides detailed simulation-based insights into the morphological diversity and spectral evolution of radio galaxy remnants across different environments.
Findings
Remnant morphology varies from amorphous to double-lobed.
Surface brightness depends strongly on environment, affecting detectability.
Spectral indices follow a consistent evolution sequence with curvature and ultra-steep phases.
Abstract
Identifying remnant radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is challenging due to their diverse morphological and spectral characteristics. Using three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of 15 radio galaxies, we investigate how the spectral evolution of remnants depends on progenitor power, active lifetime, environment, and underlying dynamics. The simulations span low-density group and high-density cluster environments re-gridded from smooth-particle-hydrodynamic cosmological simulations. The resulting remnants exhibit a wide range of morphologies, from amorphous structures to double-lobed forms. We find that jet power correlates with the spectral slope. As the remnant lobes evolve, we find surface brightness depends strongly on environment: group remnants are systematically dimmer and more amorphous than cluster remnants, highlighting a potential observational bias against these…
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