The Emergence of the X-Ray Luminosity/Cluster Richness Relation for Radio Galaxies

Abstract

The idea that mergers are more likely in dense groups or clusters coupled with the assumption that such events lead to cold gas flows onto black holes suggests a direct relationship between the radiative efficiency of an active galactic nucleus and environmental richness. Observations, however, increasingly challenge this and other basic expectations. Mounting evidence, for example, shows an inverse trend between near-Eddington accreting objects and environmental richness. Broken down by radio galaxy subgroup, recent work has explored connections between low excitation radio galaxies with Fanaroff–Riley II jet morphology (FR II LERGs) and other radio galaxies. We make contact with that work by adding a discussion of the recently discovered FR0 radio galaxies and show how to fit them in a picture in which FRII LERGs are not initial or final phases in the lifetime of a radio galaxy, but de facto transition states. We describe how to understand the observed X-ray luminosity/cluster richness relation as a fundamental correlation to the nature of the jet–disk connection.