On the environments of giant radio galaxies

Abstract

ABSTRACT We test the hypothesis that environments play a key role in enabling the growth of enormous radio structures spanning more than 700 kpc, an extreme population of radio galaxies called giant radio galaxies (GRGs). To achieve this, we explore (1) the relationships between the occurrence of GRGs and the surface number density of surrounding galaxies, including satellite galaxies and galaxies from neighbouring haloes, and (2) the GRG locations towards large-scale structures. The analysis is done by making use of a homogeneous sample of 110 GRGs detected from the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey in combination with photometric galaxies from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and a large-scale filament catalogue from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our results show that the properties of galaxies around GRGs are similar with that around the two control samples, consisting of galaxies with optical colours and luminosity matched to the properties of the GRG host galaxies. Additionally, the properties of surrounding galaxies depend on neither their relative positions to the radio jet/lobe structures nor the sizes of GRGs. We also find that the locations of GRGs and the control samples with respect to the nearby large-scale structures are consistent with each other. These results demonstrate that there is no correlation between the GRG properties and their environments traced by stars, indicating that external galaxy environments are not the primary cause of the large sizes of the radio structures. Finally, regarding radio feedback, we show that the fraction of blue satellites does not correlate with the GRG properties, suggesting that the current epoch of radio jets has minimal influence on the nature of their surrounding galaxies.