No Arabic abstract
In this paper we present a wide-area 610 MHz survey of the ELAIS,N1 field with the GMRT, covering an area of 12.8 deg$^2$ at a resolution of 6 arcsec and with an rms noise of $sim 40$ $mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$. This is equivalent to $sim 20$ $mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ rms noise at 1.4 GHz for a spectral index of $-0.75$. The primary goal of the survey was to study the polarised sky at sub-mJy flux densities at $<$ GHz frequencies. In addition, a range of other science goals, such as investigations in to the nature of the low-frequency $mu$Jy source populations and alignments of radio jets. A total of 6,400 sources were found in this region, the vast majority of them compact. The sample jointly detected by GMRT at 610 MHz and by VLA FIRST at 1.4,GHz has a median spectral index of $-0.85 pm 0.05$ and a median 610 MHz flux density of 4.5 mJy. This region has a wealth of ancillary data which is useful to characterize the detected sources. The multi-wavelength cross matching resulted optical/IR counterparts to $sim 90$ per~cent of the radio sources, with a significant fraction having at least photometric redshift. Due to the improved sensitivity of this survey over preceding ones, we have discovered six giant radio sources (GRS), with three of them at $z sim 1$ or higher. This implies that the population of GRS may be more abundant and common than known to date and if true this has implications for the luminosity function and the evolution of radio sources. We have also identified several candidate extended relic sources.
We report on the discovery of three new pulsars in the first blind survey of the north Galactic plane (45 degrees < l < 135 degrees; |b| < 1 degrees with the Giant Meterwave Radio telescope (GMRT) at an intermediate frequency of 610 MHz. The survey covered 106 square degrees with a sensitivity of roughly 1 mJy to long-period pulsars (pulsars with period longer than 1 s). The three new pulsars have periods of 318, 933, and 1056 ms. Their timing parameters and flux densities, obtained in follow up observations with the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank and the GMRT, are presented. We also report on pulse nulling behaviour in one of the newly discovered pulsars, PSR J2208+5500.
We report the discovery of a remnant radio AGN J1615+5452 in the field of ELAIS-N1. GMRT continuum observations at 150, 325 and 610 MHz combined with archival data from the 1.4 GHz NVSS survey were used to derive the radio spectrum of the source. At a redshift $z sim$ 0.33, J1615+5452 has a linear size of $sim$ 100 kpc and spectral indices ranging between $alpha^{1400}_{610} < -1.5$ and $alpha^{325}_{150} = -0.61 pm 0.12$. While the source has a diffuse radio emission at low frequencies, we do not find evidence of core, jets or hotspots in the 1.4,GHz VLA data of $sim 5$ arcsec angular resolution. Such morphological properties coupled with a curved radio spectrum suggest that the AGN fueling mechanisms undergo a shortage of energy supply which is typical of a dying radio AGN. This is consistent with the observed steep curvature in the spectrum $Deltaalpha approx -1$, the estimated synchrotron age of $t_{rm s}=76.0^{+7.4}_{-8.7}$ Myr and a $t_{rm off}/t_{rm s}$ ratio of $sim 0.3$.
The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS) will cover the full northern sky and, additionally, aims to observe the LoTSS deep fields to a noise level of ~10 microJy/bm over several tens of square degrees in areas that have the most extensive ancillary data. This paper presents the ELAIS-N1 deep field, the deepest of the LoTSS deep fields to date. With an effective observing time of 163.7 hours, it reaches a root mean square (RMS) noise level below 20 microJy/bm in the central region (and below 30 microJy/bm over 10 square degrees). The resolution is 6 arcsecs and 84862 radio sources were detected in the full area (68 sq. deg.) with 74127 sources in the highest quality area at less than 3 degrees from the pointing centre. The observation reaches a sky density of more than 5000 sources per sq. deg. in the central ~5 sq. deg. region. We present the calibration procedure, which addresses the special configuration of some observations and the extended bandwidth covered (115 to 177 MHz; central frequency 146.2 MHz) compared to standard LoTSS. We also describe the methods used to calibrate the flux density scale using cross-matching with sources detected by other radio surveys in the literature. We find the flux density uncertainty related to the flux density scale to be ~6.5%. By studying the variations of the flux density measurements between different epochs, we show that relative flux density calibration is reliable out to about a 3 degree radius, but that additional flux density uncertainty is present for all sources at about the 3 per cent level; this is likely to be associated with residual calibration errors, and is shown to be more significant in datasets with poorer ionosphere conditions. We also provide intra-band spectral indices, which can be useful to detect sources with unusual spectral properties. The final uncertainty in the flux densities is estimated to be ~10% for ELAIS-N1.
We present Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope 610 MHz observations of 14 Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) clusters, including new data for nine. The sample includes 73% of ACT equatorial clusters with $M_{500} > 5 times 10^{14};M_odot$. We detect diffuse emission in three of these (27$^{+20}_{-14}$%): we detect a radio mini-halo in ACT-CL J0022.2$-$0036 at $z=0.8$, making it the highest-redshift mini-halo known; we detect potential radio relic emission in ACT-CL J0014.9$-$0057 ($z=0.533$); and we confirm the presence of a radio halo in low-mass cluster ACT-CL J0256.5+0006, with flux density $S_{610} = 6.3;pm;0.4$ mJy. We also detect residual diffuse emission in ACT-CL J0045.9$-$0152 ($z=0.545$), which we cannot conclusively classify. For systems lacking diffuse radio emission, we determine radio halo upper limits in two ways and find via survival analysis that these limits do not significantly affect radio power scaling relations. Several clusters with no diffuse emission detection are known or suspected mergers, based on archival X-ray and/or optical measures; given the limited sensitivity of our observations, deeper observations of these disturbed systems are required in order to rule out the presence of diffuse emission consistent with known scaling relations. In parallel with our diffuse emission results, we present catalogs of individual radio sources, including a few interesting extended sources. Our study represents the first step towards probing the occurrence of diffuse emission in high-redshift ($zgtrsim0.5$) clusters, and serves as a pilot for statistical studies of larger cluster samples with the new radio telescopes available in the pre-SKA era.
We study the space density evolution of active galactic nuclei (AGN) using the $610 mathrm{MHz}$ radio survey of the XXL-North field, performed with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT). The survey covers an area of $30.4 mathrm{deg}^2$, with a beamsize of $6.5 mathrm{arcsec}$. The survey is divided into two parts, one covering an area of $11.9 mathrm{deg}^2$ with $1 sigma$ rms noise of $200 mathrm{mu Jy beam^{-1}}$ and the other spanning $18.5 mathrm{deg}^2$ with rms noise of $45 mathrm{mu Jy beam^{-1}}$. We extracted the catalog of radio components above $7 sigma$. The catalog was cross-matched with a multi-wavelength catalog of the XXL-North field (covering about $80 %$ of the radio XXL-North field) using a likelihood ratio method, which determines the counterparts based on their positions and their optical properties. The multi-component sources were matched visually with the aid of a computer code: Multi-Catalog Visual Cross-Matching (MCVCM). A flux density cut above $1 mathrm{mJy}$ selects AGN hosts with a high purity in terms of star formation contamination based on the available source counts. After cross-matching and elimination of observational biases arising from survey incompletenesses, the number of remaining sources was $1150$. We constructed the rest-frame $1.4 mathrm{GHz}$ radio luminosity functions of these sources using the maximum volume method. This survey allows us to probe luminosities of $ 23 lesssim log(L_{1.4 mathrm{GHz}}[mathrm{W/Hz}]) lesssim 28$ up to redshifts of $z approx 2.1$. Our results are consistent with the results from the literature in which AGN are comprised of two differently evolving populations, where the high luminosity end of the luminosity functions evolves more strongly than the low-luminosity end.