CCD SURFACE PHOTOMETRY OF 3 LOW-LUMINOSITY RADIO GALAXIES CONTAINING RADIO JETS

We present and discuss the results of CCD photometry of the three low-luminosity radio galaxies which contain jets at the kpc scale: B2 0836 + 29, B2 2116 + 26, and B2 2236 + 35. We study the photometric properties of the galaxies by analyzing the radial variations of surface brightness, ellipticity, major axis position angle, and isophote center. We characterize the deviations of the isophotes from perfect elliptical contours. The morphological properties of the galaxies are discussed in terms of their local environment and radio emission. We find that the galaxies present optical peculiarities that are signatures of merging processes or interactions. By subtracting galaxy models to the original frames, the resulting residual images allow us to put limits to the radio to optical spectral indices of the jets. We infer that the synchrotron spectra of these jets have cutoff frequencies below 5 X 10(14) Hz.