Radio Galaxy Zoo: discovery of a poor cluster through a giant wide-angle tail radio galaxy

We have discovered a previously unreported poor cluster of galaxies (RGZ-CL J0823.2+0333) through an unusual giant wide-angle tail radio galaxy found in the Radio Galaxy Zoo project. We obtained a spectroscopic redshift of z = 0.0897 for the E0-type host galaxy, 2MASX J08231289+0333016, leading to M_r = −22.6 and a 1.4 GHz radio luminosity density of L_1.4 = 5.5 × 10²⁴ W Hz⁻¹. These radio and optical luminosities are typical for wide-angle tailed radio galaxies near the borderline between Fanaroff–Riley classes I and II. The projected largest angular size of ≈8 arcmin corresponds to 800 kpc and the full length of the source along the curved jets/trails is 1.1 Mpc in projection. X-ray data from the XMM-Newton archive yield an upper limit on the X-ray luminosity of the thermal emission surrounding RGZ J082312.9+033301 at 1.2–2.6 × 10⁴³ erg s⁻¹ for assumed intracluster medium temperatures of 1.0–5.0 keV. Our analysis of the environment surrounding RGZ J082312.9+033301 indicates that RGZ J082312.9+033301 lies within a poor cluster. The observed radio morphology suggests that (a) the host galaxy is moving at a significant velocity with respect to an ambient medium like that of at least a poor cluster, and that (b) the source may have had two ignition events of the active galactic nucleus with 10⁷ yr in between. This reinforces the idea that an association between RGZ J082312.9+033301 and the newly discovered poor cluster exists.