Kavli Affiliate: Michael McDonald
| First 5 Authors: Mustafa Muhibullah, Mark Brodwin, Michael McDonald, Anthony H. Gonzalez, Emily Moravec
| Summary:
We present an analysis of the cluster X-ray morphology and active galactic
nucleus (AGN) activity in nine $zsim1$ galaxy clusters from the Massive and
Distant Clusters of $WISE$ Survey (MaDCoWS) observed with $Chandra$. Using
photon asymmetry ($A_{text{phot}}$) to quantify X-ray morphologies, we find
evidence that the four most dynamically disturbed clusters are likely to be
mergers. Employing a luminosity cut of $7.6times10^{42}$ erg/s to identify AGN
in the 0.7-7.0 keV, we show that the majority of these clusters host excess AGN
compared to the local field. We use the cumulative number-count ($log N-log
S$) model to predict AGN incidence in cluster isophotes under this luminosity
cut. Our analysis finds evidence (at $> 2sigma$) of a positive correlation
between AGN surface densities and photon asymmetry, suggesting that a disturbed
cluster environment plays a pivotal role in regulating AGN triggering. Studying
AGN incidence in cluster X-ray isophotes equivalent in area to $1.0r_{500}$, we
find that the AGN space density inversely scales with cluster mass as $sim
M^{-0.5^{+0.18}_{-0.18}}$ at the 3.18$sigma$ level. Finally, when we
separately explore the cluster mass dependence of excess AGN surface density in
disturbed and relaxed clusters, we see tentative evidence that the two
morphologically distinct sub-populations exhibit diverging trends, especially
near the outskirts, likely due to cluster merger-driven AGN
triggering/suppression.
| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Michael McDonald”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=3