3C 317 - AN AMORPHOUS RADIO-SOURCE IN THE COOLING FLOW CLUSTER ABELL-2052

We have observed the radio source 3C 317 in the X-ray cooling flow clu ster A2052 using the VLA at wavelengths 90, 20, 6, and 3.6 cm. Unlike most moderate-power extragalactic radio sources, 3C 317 is characteriz ed by a compact core and an amorphous halo with an angular size of 75' ' x 45''. The spectrum of the halo emission is unusually steep (alpha2 0/90cm approximately - 1.5 and alpha6/20cm approximately - 1.9). Surro unding the compact radio core at the center of the galaxy, a bipolar s tructure has been observed indicating that an outflow may have been in itially collimated to some degree. However, no well-collimated jets ha ve been detected with a resolution of 0.3''. The lack of strong collim ation could be due to jet disruption in the cooling flow on scales unr esolved by the VLA observations. An observed gradient of spectral inde x from flat (alpha approximately -0.05) at the nucleus to steep in the halo (alpha approximately - 1.9) also favors the hypothesis that rela tivistic electrons originated within the active nucleus and ''aged'' a s they move outward. The radio morphology, the curved spectrum of the integrated flux density, and the gradient within the spectral index di stribution suggest that diffusion, synchrotron losses and electron rea cceleration likely play important roles in the transport of the relati vistic electrons from the nucleus to the radio halo. In addition, our new observations reveal that the halo was a wealth of substructures: a loop (25 kpc x 1.5 kpc) and large-scale filaments which connect to th e bipolar structure. Linear analysis suggests that these filamentary s tructures could form by either magnetic field reconnection or Rayleigh -Taylor instabilities. The details of this peculiar radio source provi de evidence that radio plasma interacts with X-ray cooling flows in th e centers of clusters.