Wide-angle tail galaxies in ATLAS

Abstract

We present radio images of a sample of six wide-angle tail (WAT) radio sources, identified in the Australia Telescope Large Area Survey 1.4-GHz radio survey, and new spectroscopic redshifts for four of these sources. These WATs are in the redshift range of 0.1469-0.3762, and we find evidence of galaxy overdensities in the vicinity of four of the WATs from either spectroscopic or photometric redshifts. We also present follow-up spectroscopic observations of the area surrounding the largest WAT, S1189, which is at a redshift of ∼0.22. The spectroscopic observations, taken using the AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope, show an overdensity of galaxies at this redshift. The galaxies are spread over an unusually large area of ∼12 Mpc with a velocity spread of ∼4500 km s-1. This large-scale structure includes a highly asymmetric Fanaroff-Riley type I radio galaxy and also appears to host a radio relic. It may represent an unrelaxed system with different sub-structures interacting or merging with one another. We discuss the implications of these observations for future large-scale radio surveys. © 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2010 RAS.