Evolutionary models of powerful radio galaxies

In the past, extragalactic radio jets have been modelled as interacting with a smooth, hot interstellar medium. However, it is likely that the precursors of radio sources are major or minor mergers and the resultant debris from such an event will interact with the jets that result from the fuelling of the black hole. We describe here some recent work on the interactions of jets with clumpy interstellar media consisting of a log normal distribution of dense clouds. Important features of the simulations include radio morphologies typical of powerful radio galaxies at various stages of their evolution and persistent X-ray emission from shocked clouds which are the remnant of a circumnuclear disk.