The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey: 2.3 GHz observations of ELAIS-S1 and CDF-S: Spectral index properties of the faint radio sky

The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS) aims to image a 7 deg2 region centred on the European Large Area ISO Survey -- South 1 field and the Chandra Deep Field South at 1.4 GHz with high sensitivity to study the evolution of star-forming galaxies (SFG) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) over...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin) 2012-08, Vol.544, p.1-1
Main Authors: Zinn, P-C, Middelberg, E, Norris, R P, Hales, C A, Mao, M Y, Randall, K E
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (ATLAS) aims to image a 7 deg2 region centred on the European Large Area ISO Survey -- South 1 field and the Chandra Deep Field South at 1.4 GHz with high sensitivity to study the evolution of star-forming galaxies (SFG) and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) over a wide range of cosmic time. The authors present here ancillary radio observations at a frequency of 2.3 GHz obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. They find the entire source sample to have a median spectral index ..., in good agreement with both the canonical value of -0.7 for optically thin synchrotron radiation and other spectral index studies conducted by various groups. Regarding the radio spectral index as indicator for source type, they find only marginal correlations so that flat or inverted spectrum sources are usually powered by AGN and hence conclude that at least for the faint population the spectral index is not a strong discriminator.
ISSN:0004-6361
1432-0746