DISCOVERY OF GIANT RELIC RADIO LOBES STRADDLING THE CLASSICAL DOUBLE RADIO GALAXY 3C452

Abstract

We report the discovery of a pair of megaparsec size radio lobes of extremely steep spectrum straddling the well-known classical double radio source 3C452. The existence of such fossil lobes was unexpected since for the past several decades this powerful radio galaxy has been regarded as a textbook example of an edge-brightened double radio source of Fanaroff-Riley type II (FR II), which we now show to be a bona fide double-double radio galaxy (DDRG). Thus, 3C452 presents a uniquely robust example of recurrent nuclear activity in which the restarted jets are expanding non-relativistically within the relic synchrotron plasma from an earlier active phase and hence the inner double fed by them has evolved into a perfectly normal FR II radio source. This situation contrasts markedly with the strikingly narrow inner doubles observed in a few other DDRGs that have been interpreted in terms of compression of the synchrotron plasma of the relic outer lobes at the relativistic bow-shocks driven by the near ballistic propagation of the two inner jets through the relic plasma. A key ramification of this finding is that it cautions against the currently widespread use of FR II classical double radio sources for testing cosmological models and unification schemes for active galactic nuclei.