The Massive and Distant Clusters of WISE Survey. VII. The Environments and Properties of Radio Galaxies in Clusters at z ∼ 1

Abstract

Abstract We present the results from a study with NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to determine the radio morphologies of extended radio sources and the properties of their host galaxies in 50 massive galaxy clusters at z ∼ 1. We find a majority of the radio morphologies to be Fanaroff–Riley type IIs. By analyzing the infrared counterparts of the radio sources, we find that ∼40% of the host galaxies are the candidate brightest cluster galaxy and ∼83% are consistent with being one of the top six most massive galaxies in the cluster. We investigate the role of environmental factors on the radio-loud AGN population by examining correlations between environmental and radio-galaxy properties. We find that the highest stellar mass hosts (M * ≳ 4 × 1011 M ⊙) are confined to the cluster center and host compact jets. There is evidence for an increase in the size of the jets with cluster-centric radius, which may be attributed to the decreased ICM pressure confinement with increasing radius. Besides this correlation, there are no other significant correlations between the properties of the radio-AGN (luminosity, morphology, or size) and environmental properties (cluster richness and location within the cluster). The fact that there are more AGN in the cluster environment than the field at this epoch, combined with the lack of strong correlation between galaxy and environmental properties, argues that the cluster environment fosters radio activity but does not solely drive the evolution of these sources at this redshift.