Publication Date:
2019-07-13
Description:
We present the detection of a giant radio halo (GRH) in the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ)- selected merging galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0256.5+ 0006 (z = 0.363), observed with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at 325 and 610 MHz. We find this cluster to host a faint (S610 = 5.6 +/- 1.4mJy) radio halo with an angular extent of 2.6 arcmin, corresponding to 0.8 Mpc at the cluster redshift, qualifying it as a GRH. J0256 is one of the lowest mass systems, M500, SZ = (5.0 +/- 1.2) 10(exp14) M, found to host a GRH. We measure the GRH at lower significance at 325 MHz (S325 = 10.3 +/- 5.3mJy), obtaining a spectral index measurement of 610 325 = 1.0+ 0.7 0.9. This result is consistent with the mean spectral index of the population of typical radio haloes, alpha = 1.2 +/- 0.2. Adopting the latter value, we determine a 1.4 GHz radio power of P1.4 GHz = (1.0 +/- 0.3) 10(exp 24)W/Hz, placing this cluster within the scatter of known scaling relations. Various lines of evidence, including the intracluster medium morphology, suggest that ACT-CL J0256.5+ 0006 is composed of two subclusters. We determine a merger mass ratio of 7:4, and a line-of-sight velocity difference of v = 1880 +/- 210 km/s. We construct a simple merger model to infer relevant time-scales in the merger. From its location on the P1.4GHz-LX scaling relation, we infer that we observe ACT-CL J0256.5+ 0006 just before first core crossing.
Keywords:
Astrophysics
Type:
GSFC-E-DAA-TN40455
,
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (ISSN 0035-8711) (e-ISSN 1365-8711); 459; 4; 4240-4258
Format:
text
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