Complex diffuse radio emission in the merging Planck ESZ cluster A3411

Abstract

We present Very Large Array (VLA) radio and Chandra X-ray observations of the merging galaxy cluster A3411. For the cluster, we find an overall temperature of 6.4-1.0+0.6 keV and an X-ray luminosity of 2.8 ± 0.1 × 1044 erg s-1 between 0.5 and 2.0 keV. The Chandra observation reveals the cluster to be undergoing a merger event. The VLA observations show the presence of large-scale diffuse emission in the central region of the cluster, which we classify as a 0.9 Mpc size radio halo. In addition, a complex region of diffuse, polarized emission is found in the southeastern outskirts of the cluster along the projected merger axis of the system. We classify this region of diffuse emission as a radio relic. The total extent of this radio relic is 1.9 Mpc. For the combined emission in the cluster region, we find a radio spectral index of -1.0 ± 0.1 between 74 MHz and 1.4 GHz. The morphology of the radio relic is peculiar, as the relic is broken up into five fragments. This suggests that the shock responsible for the relic has been broken up due to interaction with a large-scale galaxy filament connected to the cluster or other substructures in the intracluster medium. Alternatively, the complex morphology reflects the presence of electrons in fossil radio bubbles that are re-accelerated by a shock. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.