Emissions from Massive Galaxies
APS April Meeting 2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Giant lobes of radio galaxies are among the largest structures in the universe—often extending into areas of space that are several orders of magnitude larger than the Milky Way.
Astronomers first identified these massive structures by their radio wave emissions decades ago, and in recent years, several modern telescopes have detected higher-energy emissions from giant lobes, indicating that they are very efficient particle accelerators.
Lukasz Stawarz (KIPAC/SLAC, Stanford University) will present the current scientific understanding of the processes that take place in the giant lobes and lead to these high-energy emissions. In order to produce the observed X-ray and gamma-ray emissions, he says, particles within the lobes must be accelerated to extremely high, ultrarelativistic speeds.
Stawarz will discuss the most recent observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Pierre Auger Observatory, and the Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope, including evidence that the lobes of nearby radio galaxies -- in particular the Centaurus A radio galaxy -- are the sources of the highest energy cosmic rays ever detected on Earth.
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