Detection of an X-ray jet in 3C 371 with Chandra

Abstract

We report the detection at X-rays of the radio/optical jet of 3C 371, from a short (10 ks) Chandra exposure in March 2000. We also present a new MERLIN observation at 1.4 GHz together with a renalysis of the archival HST WFPC2 F555W image. Despite the limited signal-to-noise ratio of the Chandra data, the X-ray morphology is clearly different from that of the radio/optical emission, with the brightest X-ray knot at 1.7" from the nucleus and little X-ray emission from the brightest radio/optical knot at 3.1". We construct the spectral energy distributions for the two emission regions at 1.7" and 3.1". Both show that the X-ray flux is below the extrapolation from the radio-to-optical continuum, suggesting moderately beamed synchrotron from an electron population with decreasing high energy cut-off as a plausible emission mechanism.