A Comprehensive Study of the Radio Properties of Brightest Cluster
  Galaxies
  We examine the radio properties of the Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) in a
large sample of X-ray selected galaxy clusters comprising the Brightest Cluster
Sample (BCS), the extended BCS (eBCS) and ROSAT-ESO Flux Limited X-ray (REFLEX)
cluster catalogues. We have multi-frequency radio observations of the BCG using
a variety of data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), Jansky
Very Large Array (VLA) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) telescopes. The
radio spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these objects are decomposed into
a component attributed to on-going accretion by the active galactic nuclei
(AGN) that we refer to as the 'core', and a more diffuse, ageing component we
refer to as the 'non-core'. These BCGs are matched to previous studies to
determine whether they exhibit emission lines (principally H-alpha), indicative
of the presence of a strong cooling cluster core. We consider how the radio
properties of the BCGs vary with cluster environmental factors. Line emitting
BCGs are shown to generally host more powerful radio sources, exhibiting the
presence of a strong, distinguishable core component in about 60% of cases.
This core component more strongly correlates with the BCG's [OIII]5007A line
emission. For BCGs in line-emitting clusters, the X-ray cavity power correlates
with both the extended and core radio emission, suggestive of steady fuelling
of the AGN over bubble-rise time-scales in these clusters.
