Tracing the Milky Way's Vestigial Nuclear Jet
Abstract
MeerKAT radio continuum and XMM-Newton X-ray images have recently revealed a spectacular bipolar channel at the Galactic Center that spans several degrees (~0.5 kpc). An intermittent jet likely formed this channel and is consistent with earlier evidence of a sustained, Seyfert-level outburst fueled by black hole accretion onto Sgr A* several Myr ago. Therefore, to trace a now weak jet that perhaps penetrated, deflected, and percolated along multiple paths through the interstellar medium, relevant interactions are identified and quantified in archival X-ray images, Hubble Space Telescope Paschen α images and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array millimeter-wave spectra, and new SOAR telescope IR spectra. Hydrodynamical simulations are used to show how a nuclear jet can explain these structures and inflate the ROSAT/eROSITA X-ray and Fermi γ-ray bubbles that extend ± 75° from the Galactic plane. Thus, our Galactic outflow has features in common with energetic, jet-driven structures in the prototypical Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4357/ac224f
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2109.00901
- Bibcode:
- 2021ApJ...922..254C
- Keywords:
-
- 1056;
- 565;
- 870;
- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 30 pages, 32 figures in main text, 17 interactive figure and control Javascript in /anc subdirectory. Please retrieve paper with full resolution figures and interactive figure at http://physics.unc.edu/~cecil/MWjet