3C 236: Radio Source, Interrupted?

We present new Hubble Space Telescope Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph MAMA near-UV images and archival Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) V- and R-band images that reveal the presence of four star-forming regions in an arc along the edge of the dust lane in the giant (4 Mpc) radio galaxy 3C 236. Two of the star-forming regions are relatively young, with ages of order ∼107 yr, while the other two are older, with ages of order ∼108–109 yr, which is comparable to the estimated age of the giant radio source. Based on dynamical and spectral aging arguments, we suggest that the fuel supply to the active galactic nucleus (AGN) was interrupted for ∼107 yr and has now been restored, resulting in the formation of the inner 2 kpc–scale radio source. This timescale is similar to that of the age of the youngest of the star-forming regions. We suggest that the transport of gas in the disk is nonsteady and that this produces the multiple episodes of star formation in the disk, as well as the multiple epochs of radio source activity. If the inner radio source and the youngest star-forming region are related by the same event of gas transport, the gas must be transported from the hundreds of parsec scale to the subparsec scale on a timescale of ∼107 yr, which is similar to the dynamical timescale of the gas on the hundreds of parsec scale.