LOFAR unveils an exceptional radio lobe-spiral galaxy encounter
I will report on the serendipitous discovery of an unprecedented interaction between the radio lobe of an FRI galaxy and a spiral galaxy. The discovery was made thanks to LOFAR observations of the galaxy cluster Abell 160 (z=0.04317) provided by the LoTSS survey. The new low-frequency observation revealed that one of the radio lobes of the central galaxy GIN 049 encompasses the spiral galaxy JO36 (z=0.0407). Previous studies carried out with MUSE revealed that the hot, ionized interstellar medium of JO36, traced by Hα emission, is severely truncated with respect to its stellar disk. We further explore this unique system by including new uGMRT observations at 610 MHz to map the spectral index all over the radio source. I will showcase the results of this multi-wavelength analysis. The emerging scenario is that the evolution of JO36 has been strongly driven by a combination of environmental processing, via the ram pressure stripping, and the encounter with the radio lobe. In turn, the galaxy passage left a trace in the radio-old lobe by re-accelerating the old relativistic electrons. This system represents a new, unique laboratory to study the astrophysics of relativistic plasmas and it will be the object of future studies.