Extended radio emission in and around the merging cluster A520 as seen by MeerKAT
Abstract
We present results from a deep MeerKAT 1.28 GHz observation of Abell 520, a galaxy cluster in the middle of a merger and a treasure trove of merger-generated phenomena. MeerKAT's combination of high angular resolution and sensitivity to extended radio emission lets us uncover unprecedented detail of the cluster's giant halo and puzzling features beyond the halo. We find that the main radio halo is sharply bounded along the direction of the NE-SW merger axis by the two X-ray shock fronts. In the perpendicular direction, the halo wings smoothly span over 2 Mpc, with the spectrum steepening in the outskirts. We detect faint radio emission upstream of the main (SW) bow shock; the emissivity jump across this shock can be used to constrain the physical mechanisms at work there. We discover a tail of radio emission extending past the NE shock to the gas-poor, high-entropy ``dark subcluster'' in the NE outskirts. The tail and subcluster have a higher radio/X-ray brightness ratio than the main halo's, suggesting efficient reacceleration of cosmic rays. We also discover two peripheral radio relics beyond the cluster virial radius, and a faint, ∼2 Mpc long, broad radio bridge connecting the dark subcluster to one of the relics along the direction perpendicular to the merger axis. The spectral slopes of the dark subcluster and the bridge are consistent with that of the main halo. This bridge and both relics may be caused by another giant merger-generated shock front at the virial radius.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{giacintucci2026extended,
title = {{Extended radio emission in and around the merging cluster A520 as seen by MeerKAT}},
author = {S. Giacintucci and W. D. Cotton and M. Markevitch and T. Venturi and T. E. Clarke and H. Bourdin},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.00156},
eprint = {2609.00156},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00156},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Extended radio emission in and around the merging cluster A520 as seen by MeerKAT
AU - S. Giacintucci
AU - W. D. Cotton
AU - M. Markevitch
AU - T. Venturi
AU - T. E. Clarke
AU - H. Bourdin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.00156
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00156
AB - We present results from a deep MeerKAT 1.28 GHz observation of Abell 520, a galaxy cluster in the middle of a merger and a treasure trove of merger-generated phenomena. MeerKAT's combination of high angular resolution and sensitivity to extended radio emission lets us uncover unprecedented detail of the cluster's giant halo and puzzling features beyond the halo. We find that the main radio halo is sharply bounded along the direction of the NE-SW merger axis by the two X-ray shock fronts. In the perpendicular direction, the halo wings smoothly span over 2 Mpc, with the spectrum steepening in the outskirts. We detect faint radio emission upstream of the main (SW) bow shock; the emissivity jump across this shock can be used to constrain the physical mechanisms at work there. We discover a tail of radio emission extending past the NE shock to the gas-poor, high-entropy ``dark subcluster'' in the NE outskirts. The tail and subcluster have a higher radio/X-ray brightness ratio than the main halo's, suggesting efficient reacceleration of cosmic rays. We also discover two peripheral radio relics beyond the cluster virial radius, and a faint, ∼2 Mpc long, broad radio bridge connecting the dark subcluster to one of the relics along the direction perpendicular to the merger axis. The spectral slopes of the dark subcluster and the bridge are consistent with that of the main halo. This bridge and both relics may be caused by another giant merger-generated shock front at the virial radius.
ER -