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Radio and Far-IR Extragalactic Sources at Planck Frequencies

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 Added by Luigi Toffolatti
 Publication date 1998
  fields Physics
and research's language is English




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We discuss the main uncertainties affecting estimates of small scale fluctuations due to extragalactic sources in the Planck Surveyor frequency bands. Conservative estimates allow us to confidently conclude that, in the frequency range 100--200 GHz, the contaminating effect of extragalactic sources is well below the expected anisotropy level of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), down to angular scales of at least $simeq 10$. Hence, an accurate subtraction of foreground fluctuations is not critical for the determination of the CMB power spectrum up to multipoles $ell simeq 1000$. In any case, Plancks wide frequency coverage will allow to carefully control foreground contributions. On the other hand, the all sky surveys at 9 frequencies, spanning the range 30--900 GHz, will be unique in providing complete samples comprising from several hundreds to many thousands of extragalactic sources, selected in an essentially unexplored frequency interval. New classes of sources may be revealed in these data.



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We present a sample of 1,483 sources that display spectral peaks between 72 MHz and 1.4 GHz, selected from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey. The GLEAM survey is the widest fractional bandwidth all-sky survey to date, ideal for identifying peaked-spectrum sources at low radio frequencies. Our peaked-spectrum sources are the low frequency analogues of gigahertz-peaked spectrum (GPS) and compact-steep spectrum (CSS) sources, which have been hypothesized to be the precursors to massive radio galaxies. Our sample more than doubles the number of known peaked-spectrum candidates, and 95% of our sample have a newly characterized spectral peak. We highlight that some GPS sources peaking above 5 GHz have had multiple epochs of nuclear activity, and demonstrate the possibility of identifying high redshift ($z > 2$) galaxies via steep optically thin spectral indices and low observed peak frequencies. The distribution of the optically thick spectral indices of our sample is consistent with past GPS/CSS samples but with a large dispersion, suggesting that the spectral peak is a product of an inhomogeneous environment that is individualistic. We find no dependence of observed peak frequency with redshift, consistent with the peaked-spectrum sample comprising both local CSS sources and high-redshift GPS sources. The 5 GHz luminosity distribution lacks the brightest GPS and CSS sources of previous samples, implying that a convolution of source evolution and redshift influences the type of peaked-spectrum sources identified below 1 GHz. Finally, we discuss sources with optically thick spectral indices that exceed the synchrotron self-absorption limit.
The LWA will be well suited to address many important questions about the physics and astrophysics of extragalactic synchrotron sources. Good low-frequency data will enable major steps forward in our understanding of radio galaxy physics, of the plasma in clusters of galaxies, and of active objects in the high-redshift universe. Such data will also be important in answering some basic questions about the physics of synchrotron-emitting plasmas.
Continuum spectra covering centimetre to submillimetre wavelengths are presented for a northern sample of 104 extragalactic radio sources, mainly active galactic nuclei, based on four-epoch Planck data. The nine Planck frequencies, from 30 to 857 GHz, are complemented by a set of simultaneous ground-based radio observations between 1.1 and 37 GHz. The single-survey Planck data confirm that the flattest high-frequency radio spectral indices are close to zero, indicating that the original accelerated electron energy spectrum is much harder than commonly thought, with power-law index around 1.5 instead of the canonical 2.5. The radio spectra peak at high frequencies and exhibit a variety of shapes. For a small set of low-z sources, we find a spectral upturn at high frequencies, indicating the presence of intrinsic cold dust. Variability can generally be approximated by achromatic variations, while sources with clear signatures of evolving shocks appear to be limited to the strongest outbursts.
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