Extragalactic Sources with Extended Radio Emission.

Galaxies (and quasars) hosting active galactic nuclei (AGN) are usually powerful radio sources which produce jets and extended radio emitting regions (lobes) of plasma. There is a huge range from less than 100 pc up to few Mpc in linear extent of the radio galaxies (RGs). RGs with sizes over more than one Mpc represent the biggest single objects in the Universe. The most extreme of those is 3C236 which has a projected linear size of 4.2 Mpc (H0 =71 km s-1 Mpc-1, Ω = 1). Another example of a giant radio galaxy (GRG) B0503-286 is shown in Fig. 1. The very large angular sizes (up to several dozens of arcminutes) of GRGs on the sky give an excellent opportunity to study the nature of AGNs and provide important constraints on the evolution of galaxies. Because of their sizes and luminosities GRGs have significant influence on the intergalactic medium (IGM). The total energy delivered into the IGM by the twin jets of a GRG is about 1054 J, which is a significant fraction of the gravitational energy released during the formation of a supermassive black hole in the centre of an AGN’s parent galaxy. On the other hand, GRGs possess low equipartition magnetic field strengths and energy densities of their cocoons. This matches the statement of Colgate & Li [1] who affirm that for most radio sources located in a low-density environment only a small fraction of the magnetic energy is dissipated in the form of synchrotron radiation while the bulk of the magnetic energy is deposited in the walls and voids of the Universe. Kronberg et al. [2] suggest that the magnetic energy which originates from AGN outflows and which is stored in the intergalactic magnetic field has a major influence on the evolution of galaxies and visible structure formation on scales of up to ~ 1Mpc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]