Radio-Optical Alignment of Radio Galaxies

Lizbeth A. Vazquez Najar, Heinz Andernach

Published 2019-08-27Version 1

Images from recent radio surveys were used to determine the radio position angles for over 2000 extended radio galaxies with host galaxies brighter than m$_{r}\sim$18 mag. For 1509 of these their optical axis ratios were obtained, and for a subset of 857 also their major axis position angle. It is confirmed that the majority of radio galaxies have their jets or lobes ejected within $\sim30^{\circ}$ of the optical minor axis of their host, but no evidence is found for the minor-axis alignment to be stronger for physically larger radio sources, nor for the presence of a secondary population of brightest cluster galaxies with radio axes near to parallel to their optical major axes.