A giant radio halo in the massive and merging cluster Abell 1351

We report on the detection of diffuse radio emission in the X-ray luminous and massive galaxy cluster A1351 (z=0.322) using archival Very Large Array data at 1.4 GHz. Given its central location, morphology, and Mpc-scale extent, we classify the diffuse source as a giant radio halo. X-ray and weak lensing studies show A1351 to be a system undergoing a major merger. The halo is associated with the most massive substructure. The presence of this source is explained assuming that merger-driven turbulence may re-accelerate high-energy particles in the intracluster medium and generate diffuse radio emission on the cluster scale. The position of A1351 in the logP$_{1.4 GHz}$ - logL$_{X}$ plane is consistent with that of all other radio-halo clusters known to date, supporting a causal connection between the unrelaxed dynamical state of massive ($>10^{15} M_{\odot}$) clusters and the presence of giant radio halos.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, proof corrections include

Anisotropic inverse Compton emission in the radio galaxy 3C 265

We present the results from a Chandra observation of the powerful radio galaxy 3C 265. We detect X-ray emission from the nucleus, the radio hotspots and lobes. In particular, the lobe X-ray emission is well explained as anisotropic inverse Compton scattering of the nuclear photons by the relativistic electrons in the radio lobes; the comparison between radio synchrotron and IC emission yields a magnetic field strength a factor about 2 lower than that calculated under minimum energy conditions. The X-ray spectrum of the nucleus is consistent with that of a powerful, strongly absorbed quasar and the X-ray emission of the south-eastern hotspot can be successfully reproduced by a combination of synchro-self Compton and inverse Compton emission assuming a magnetic field slightly lower than equipartition.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, to be published as a Letter on Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

The challenge of turbulent acceleration of relativistic particles in the intra-cluster medium

Acceleration of cosmic-ray electrons (CRe) in the intra-cluster-medium (ICM) is probed by radio observations that detect diffuse, Mpc-scale, synchrotron sources in a fraction of galaxy clusters. Giant radio halos are the most spectacular manifestations of non-thermal activity in the ICM and are currently explained assuming that turbulence driven during massive cluster-cluster mergers reaccelerates CRe at several GeV. This scenario implies a hierarchy of complex mechanisms in the ICM that drain energy from large-scales into electromagnetic fluctuations in the plasma and collisionless mechanisms of particle acceleration at much smaller scales. In this paper we focus on the physics of acceleration by compressible turbulence. The spectrum and damping mechanisms of the electromagnetic fluctuations, and the mean-free-path (mfp) of CRe are the most relevant ingredients that determine the efficiency of acceleration. These ingredients in the ICM are however poorly known and we show that calculations of turbulent acceleration are also sensitive to these uncertainties. On the other hand this fact implies that the non-thermal properties of galaxy clusters probe the complex microphysics and the weakly collisional nature of the ICM.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. Invited paper for the 42th EPS conference on plasma physics (2015), accepted for publication in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in PPCF. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from i

Anisotropic inverse Compton scattering from the trans-relativistic to the ultra-relativistic regime and application to the radio galaxies

The problem of the anisotropic Inverse Compton scattering between a monochromatic photon beam and relativistic electrons is revisited and formally solved without approximations. Solutions are given for the single scattering with an electron beam and with a population of electrons isotropically distributed, under the assumption that the energy distribution of the relativistic particles follows a simple power law as it is the case in many astrophysical applications. Both the Thomson approximation and the Klein-Nishina regime are considered for the scattering of an unpolarized photon beam. The equations are obtained without the ultra-relativistic approximation and are compared with the ultra-relativistic solutions given in the literature. The main characteristics of the power distribution and spectra of the scattered radiation are discussed for relevant examples. In the Thomson case for an isotropic electron population simple formulae holding down to mildly-relativistic energies are given. As an application the formulae of the anisotropic inverse Compton scattering are used to predict the properties of the X and $\gamma$-ray spectra from the radio lobes of strong FR II radio galaxies due to the interaction of the relativistic electrons with the incoming photons from the nucleus. The dependence of the emitted power on the relativistic electron energy distribution and on its evolution with time is discussed.Comment: 35 pages, 17 .ps figures, LaTex, to appear in Astroparticle Physic

The K(n)K(n)-Euler characteristic of extraspecial pp-groups.

Let p be an odd prime, and let K(n)* denote the nth Morava K-theory at the prime p; we compute the K(n)-Euler characteristic \chi_{n;p}(G) of the classifying space of an extraspecial p-group G. Equivalently, we get the number of conjugacy classes of commuting n-tuples in the group G. We obtain this result by examining the lattice of isotropic subspaces of an even-dimensional Fp-vector space with respect to a non-degenerate alternating form B