A MeerKAT view on galaxy clusters: A radio-optical study of Abell 1300 and MACS J1931.8-2634

In this paper, we present results from a radio-optical study of the galaxy populations of the galaxy clusters Abell 1300 and MACS J1931.8-2634, a merger and a relaxed system respectively both located at z ∼0.3, aimed at finding evidence of merger-induced radio emission. Radio observations are taken at 1.28 GHz with the MeerKAT interferometer during its early-stage commissioning phase, and combined with archive optical data. We generated catalogues containing 107 and 162 radio sources in the A 1300 and MACS J1931.8-2634 cluster fields, respectively, above a 0.2 mJy threshold and within a 30 arcmin radius from the cluster centre (corresponding to 8.1 and 8.8 Mpc, respectively). By cross-correlating the radio and optical catalogues, and including spectroscopic information, nine and six sources were found to be cluster members and used to construct the radio luminosity functions, respectively, for both clusters. The comparison of the radio source catalogues between the two cluster fields leads to a marginal difference, with a 2σ statistical significance. We derived the radio luminosity function at 1.28 GHz in both clusters, in the power range of $22.81 lt m {log~mathit{ P}_{1.28~GHz}~(W,Hz^{-1})} lt 25.95$, and obtained that in A 1300 the radio luminosity function averaged over the full radio power interval is only 3.3 ± 1.9 times higher than the MACS J1931.8-2634 one, suggesting no statistical difference in their probability to host nuclear radio emission. We conclude that, at least for the two clusters studied here, the role of cluster mergers in affecting the statistical properties of the radio galaxy population is negligible.