Examining the Role of Environment in AGN Jet Production

Mon, December 14, 2015

Precise determination of fuelling and triggering mechanisms of AGN and their outflows is vital to understanding the feedback processes from supermassive black holes. By examining the frequency of AGN and their outflows in and outside of clusters, one can determine the effects of merging, gas stripping, and other dynamical effects. X-ray studies of this nature have shown that AGN are affected by the cluster environment, in line with a merger driven triggering scenario (Ehlert et al. 2015). In this talk I will present complementary analysis to this X-ray selected campaign by examining jetted outflows in 60 of these clusters found in the FIRST catalog. By doing so, we assess how cluster environment affects this kinetic component (i.e. the jet) in the feedback loop. I will discuss the evolution of the radio number density in these clusters as a function of the host redshift and cluster mass.