  We have observed the prototypical wide-angle tail radio galaxy 3C465 with
Chandra and XMM-Newton. X-ray emission is detected from the active nucleus and
the inner radio jet, as well as a small-scale, cool component of thermal
emission, a number of the individual galaxies of the host cluster (Abell 2634),
and the hotter thermal emission from the cluster itself. The X-ray detection of
the jet allows us to argue that synchrotron emission may be an important
mechanism in other well-collimated, fast jets, including those of classical
double radio sources. The bases of the radio plumes are not detected in the
X-ray, which supports the model in which these plumes are physically different
from the twin jets of lower-power radio galaxies. The plumes are in fact
spatially coincident with deficits of X-ray emission on large scales, which
argues that they contain little thermal material at the cluster temperature,
although the minimum pressures throughout the source are lower than the
external pressures estimated from the observed thermal emission. Our
observations confirm both spatially and spectrally that a component of dense,
cool gas with a short cooling time is associated with the central galaxy.
However, there is no evidence for the kind of discontinuity in external
properties that would be required in many models of the jet-plume transition in
WATs. Although the WAT jet-plume transition appears likely to be related to the
interface between this central cool component and the hotter intra-cluster
medium, the mechanism for WAT formation remains unclear. We revisit the
question of the bending of WAT plumes, and show that the plumes can be bent by
plausible bulk motions of the intra-cluster medium, or by motion of the host
galaxy with respect to the cluster, as long as the plumes are light.
