Disturbed radio and optical morphology in the interacting galaxy pairs

Abstract

We present high resolution radio observations and their analysis of a radio-loud compact steep spectrum (CSS) sources FIRST J164311.3+315618 and FIRST J150805.6+342323. The radio observations presented here were made with the multi-element radio linked interferometer network (MERLIN) at 1.66 GHz and 5 GHz. The radio source FIRST J164311.3+315618 is associated with a small separation, 2.3 arcsec, radio-loud/radio-quiet binary quasar. The radio object FIRST J150805.6+342323 is associated with the north-eastern member of an interacting galaxy pair separated by 24 arcseconds. Our observations revealed disrupted radio morphology of both CSS sources. The distortions of the host galaxy of the two systems are also clearly visible in the optical images and, in the case of binary quasar FIRST J164311.3+315618, are well correlated with the radio ones. We suggest that the ignition of the AGN activity and its complex morphology is caused by the interaction with the companion in the process of merging.