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arXiv · 2109.00901

Tracing the Milky Way's Vestigial Nuclear Jet

Gerald Cecil·Alexander Y. Wagner·Joss Bland-Hawthorn·Geoffrey V. Bicknell·Dipanjan Mukherjee
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Abstract

MeerKAT radio continuum and XMM-Newton X-ray images have recently revealed a spectacular bipolar channel at the Galactic Center that spans several degrees ($\sim$0.5 kpc). An intermittent jet likely formed this channel and is consistent with earlier evidence of a sustained, Seyfert-level outburst fueled by black-hole accretion onto Sgr A$^*$ several Myr ago. Therefore, to trace a now weak jet that perhaps penetrated, deflected, and percolated along multiple paths through the interstellar medium, relevant interactions are identified and quantified in archival X-ray images, Hubble Space Telescope Paschen $\alpha$ images and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array millimeter-wave spectra, and new SOAR telescope IR spectra. Hydrodynamical simulations are used to show how a currently weak jet can explain these structures and inflate the ROSAT/eROSITA X-ray and Fermi $\gamma$-ray bubbles that extend $\pm75\deg$ from the Galactic plane. Thus, our Galactic outflow has features in common with energetic, jet-driven structures in the prototypical Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068.

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Gerald Cecil, Alexander Y. Wagner, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Geoffrey V. Bicknell, Dipanjan Mukherjee. 2021-09-02. Tracing the Milky Way's Vestigial Nuclear Jet. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac224f

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