Probing the Origin of Diffuse Radio Emission in the Cool Core of the Phoenix Galaxy Cluster

Abstract

Cool core galaxy clusters are considered to be dynamically relaxed clusters with regular morphology and highly X-ray luminous central region. However, cool core clusters can also be sites for merging events that exhibit cold fronts in X-ray and minihalos in radio. We present recent radio/X-ray observations of the Phoenix Cluster or South Pole Telescope (SPT)-CL J2344-4243 at the redshift of z  = 0.596. Using archival Chandra X-ray observations, we detect spiraling cool gas around the cluster core as well as discover two cold fronts near the core. This is perhaps the most distant galaxy cluster to date known to host cold fronts. Also, we present JVLA 8 1.52 GHz observations of the minihalo, previously discovered at 610 MHz with GMRT 9 observations in the center of the Phoenix galaxy cluster. The minihalo flux density at 1.52 GHz is 9.65 ± 0.97 mJy with the spectral index between 610 MHz and 1.52 GHz being −0.98 ± 0.16. 10 A possible origin of these radio sources is turbulence induced by sloshing of the gas in the cluster core.