Environments of Luminous Low-frequency Radio Galaxies Since Cosmic Noon: Jet-mode Feedback Dominates in Groups

Abstract Coupling between relativistic jets launched by accreting supermassive black holes and the surrounding gaseous media is a vital ingredient in galaxy evolution models. To constrain the environments in which this feedback takes place over cosmic time, we study the host-halo properties of luminous low-frequency radio galaxies ( L 150 MHz ≳ 10 25.25 W Hz −1 ) selected with the International Low-Frequency Array Telescope out to z ∼ 2 through tomographic clustering and cosmic microwave background lensing measurements. We find that these systems occupy halos characteristic of galaxy groups ( M h = 10 13 –10 14 h −1 M ⊙ ), evolving at a rate consistent with the mean growth rate of halos over the past ∼10 Gyr. The coevolution of the clustering and the luminosity function reveals that the duty cycle of these systems is of order ∼10% but has been mildly increasing since z ∼ 2, while the duty cycle of quasars has been declining. We estimate the characteristic kinetic heating power injected by powerful jets per halo as a function of mass, and compare to the same quantity injected by quasar winds. We find that powerful jet heating dominates over quasar winds in halos M h ≳ 10 13 h −1 M ⊙ at z < 2. These results conform to the paradigm of galaxy evolution in which mechanical jet power feedback is the dominant heating mechanism of the gas content of groups and clusters.