English

Source Counts Spanning Eight Decades of Flux Density at 1.4 GHz

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2021-03-24 v1

Abstract

Brightness-weighted differential source counts S2n(S)S^2 n(S) spanning the eight decades of flux density between 0.25μJy0.25\,\mu\mathrm{Jy} and 25 Jy at 1.4 GHz were measured from (1) the confusion brightness distribution in the MeerKAT DEEP2 image below 10μJy10\,\mu\mathrm{Jy}, (2) counts of DEEP2 sources between 10μJy10\,\mu\mathrm{Jy} and 2.5mJy2.5\,\mathrm{mJy}, and (3) counts of NVSS sources stronger than 2.5mJy2.5\,\mathrm{mJy}. We present our DEEP2 catalog of 1.7×1041.7 \times 10^4 discrete sources complete above S=10μJyS = 10\,\mu\mathrm{Jy} over Ω=1.04deg2\Omega = 1.04\,\mathrm{deg}^2. The brightness-weighted counts converge as S2n(S)S1/2S^2 n(S) \propto S^{1/2} below S=10μJyS = 10\,\mu\mathrm{Jy}, so >99%>99\% of the ΔTb0.06K\Delta T_\mathrm{b} \sim 0.06\,\mathrm{K} sky brightness produced by active galactic nuclei and 96%\approx96\% of the ΔTb0.04K\Delta T_\mathrm{b} \sim 0.04\,\mathrm{K} added by star-forming galaxies has been resolved into sources with S0.25μJyS \geq 0.25\,\mu\mathrm{Jy}. The ΔTb0.4K\Delta T_\mathrm{b} \approx 0.4\,\mathrm{K} excess brightness measured by ARCADE 2 cannot be produced by faint sources smaller than 50kpc\approx 50\,\mathrm{kpc} if they cluster like galaxies.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.07827,
  title  = {Source Counts Spanning Eight Decades of Flux Density at 1.4 GHz},
  author = {A. M. Matthews and J. J. Condon and W. D. Cotton and T. Mauch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.07827},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

19 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ