|
Description
Using a deep Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) radio survey covering an area of ~3 deg<sup>2</sup> to a 4-sigma sensitivity of >= 100 µJy (µJy) at 1.4 GHz, the authors study the nature of faint radio galaxies. The region, 2 degrees in diameter and centered on RA and Dec (J2000.0) of 1<sup>h</sup> 14<sup>m</sup> 12.16<sup>s</sup>, -45<sup>o</sup> 44' 08.0" (Galactic latitude of -71<sup>o</sup>), is known as the Phoenix Deep Field. About 50% of the detected radio sources are identified with an optical counterpart revealed by CCD photometry to m<sub>R</sub> = 22.5 magnitudes. Near-infrared (K-band) data are also available for a selected sample of the radio sources, while spectroscopic observations have been carried out for about 40% of the optically identified sample. These provide redshifts and information on the stellar content. Emission-line ratios imply that most of the emission-line sources are star-forming galaxies, with a small contribution (~ 10%) from Seyfert 1/Seyfert 2 type objects. The authors also find a significant number of absorption-line systems, likely to be ellipticals. These dominate at high flux densities ( > 1 mJy) but are also found at sub-mJy levels. Using the Balmer decrement, they find a visual extinction A<sub>V</sub> = 1.0 for the star-forming faint radio sources. This moderate reddening is consistent with the (V - R) and (R - K) colors of the optically identified sources. For emission-line galaxies, there is a correlation between the radio power and the H-alpha luminosity, in agreement with the result of Benn et al. (1993, MNRAS, 263, 98). This suggests that the radio emission of starburst radio galaxies is a good indicator of star formation activity. When calculating luminosities, the authors assume a cosmology with a Hubble constant H<sub>0</sub> of 50 km s<sup>-1</sup> Mpc<sup>-1</sup> and a deceleration parameter q<sub>0</sub> of 0.5. This table was created by the HEASARC in June 2013 based on an electronic version of Table 1 from the reference paper, which details the photometric (optical and near-infrared), radio, spectroscopic and intrinsic properties of the faint radio sources in the PDS with established redshifts, which was obtained from the CDS web site (their catalog J/MNRAS/306/708 file table1.dat). This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .
|
