2009/10/27 by R. D. Baldi, A. Capetti · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/200913021
We explore radio and spectroscopic properties of a sample of 14 miniature radio galaxies, i.e. early-type core galaxies hosting radio-loud AGN of extremely low radio power, 10<sup>27-29<sup/> erg s<sup>-1<sup/> Hz<sup>-1<sup/> at 1.4 GHz. Miniature radio galaxies smoothly extend the relationships found for the more powerful FR I radio galaxies between emission line, optical and radio nuclear luminosities to lower levels. However, they have a deficit of a factor of ~100 in extended radio emission with respect to that of the classical example of 3CR/FR I. This is not due to their low luminosity, since we found radio galaxies of higher radio core power, similar to those of 3CR/FR I, showing the same behavior, i.e. lacking significant extended radio emission. Such sources form the bulk of the population of radio-loud AGN in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. At a given level of nuclear emission, one can find radio sources with an extremely wide range, a factor of 100, of radio power. We argue that the prevalence of sources with luminous extended radio structures in flux limited samples is due to a selection bias, since the inclusion of such objects is highly favored. The most studied catalogues of radio galaxies are thus composed by the minority of radio-loud AGN that meet the physical conditions required to form extended radio sources, while the bulk of the population is virtually unexplored.