The Allen Telescope Array Pi GHz Sky Survey I. Survey Description and Static Catalog Results for the Bootes Field
Abstract
The Pi GHz Sky Survey (PiGSS) is a key project of the Allen Telescope Array. PiGSS is a 3.1 GHz survey of radio continuum emission in the extragalactic sky with an emphasis on synoptic observations that measure the static and time-variable properties of the sky. During the 2.5-year campaign, PiGSS will twice observe ~250,000 radio sources in the 10,000 deg^2 region of the sky with b > 30 deg to an rms sensitivity of ~1 mJy. Additionally, sub-regions of the sky will be observed multiple times to characterize variability on time scales of days to years. We present here observations of a 10 deg^2 region in the Bootes constellation overlapping the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey field. The PiGSS image was constructed from 75 daily observations distributed over a 4-month period and has an rms flux density between 200 and 250 microJy. This represents a deeper image by a factor of 4 to 8 than we will achieve over the entire 10,000 deg^2. We provide flux densities, source sizes, and spectral indices for the 425 sources detected in the image. We identify ~100$ new flat spectrum radio sources; we project that when completed PiGSS will identify 10^4 flat spectrum sources. We identify one source that is a possible transient radio source. This survey provides new limits on faint radio transients and variables with characteristic durations of months.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1009.4443,
title = {The Allen Telescope Array Pi GHz Sky Survey I. Survey Description and Static Catalog Results for the Bootes Field},
author = {Geoffrey C. Bower and Steve Croft and Garrett Keating and David Whysong and Rob Ackermann and Shannon Atkinson and Don Backer and Peter Backus and Billy Barott and Amber Bauermeister and Leo Blitz and Douglas Bock and Tucker Bradford and Calvin Cheng and Chris Cork and Mike Davis and Dave DeBoer and Matt Dexter and John Dreher and Greg Engargiola and Ed Fields and Matt Fleming and R. James Forster and Colby Gutierrez-Kraybill and G. R. Harp and Carl Heiles and Tamara Helfer and Chat Hull and Jane Jordan and Susanne Jorgensen and Tom Kilsdonk and Casey Law and Joeri van Leeuwen and John Lugten and Dave MacMahon and Peter McMahon and Oren Milgrome and Tom Pierson and Karen Randall and John Ross and Seth Shostak and Andrew Siemion and Ken Smolek and Jill Tarter and Douglas Thornton and Lynn Urry and Artyom Vitouchkine and Niklas Wadefalk and Sandy Weinreb and Jack Welch and Dan Werthimer and Peter K. G. Williams and Melvyn Wright},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1009.4443},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJ; revision submitted with extraneous figure removed