X-Ray Observations of Radio Galaxies

Abstract

We review some of the ways that X-ray observations provide unique information on radio galaxies. Thermal bremsstrahlung X-ray emission provides detailed data on ambient densities and temperatures. These parameters in turn can be used for pressure balance calculations and can demonstrate how the ambient gas affects radio source structure. Additionally, many signatures of the interaction of radio jets and lobes with the hot gas are found in high resolution X-ray maps. Non-thermal X-ray emission from knots and hotspots of radio jets can give us constraints on the relativistic electron population for energies greater that that normally sampled in the radio (in the case of synchrotron emission) or can give us an independent estimate of the average magnetic field strength (if inverse Compton emission is the origin of the X-rays). From recent ROSAT HRI observations of 3C 390.3 and 3C 120, we show evidence that X-ray emission from knots and hotspots appears to be associated with regions of large gradients in the radio surface brightness; i.e. at the location of powerful shocks.

To be published in `The most distant radio galaxies' KNAW Colloquium, Amsterdam, October 1997, eds Best et al., Kluwer. 15 pages of LaTex including 4 postscript figures. Uses knawproc.cls and psfig