| Title | A new search for distant radio galaxies in the Southern hemisphere - I. Sample definition and radio properties |
| Authors | Broderick, J. W.; Bryant, J. J.; Hunstead, R. W.; Sadler, E. M.; Murphy, T. |
| Bibcode | 2007MNRAS.381..341B Search ADS ↗ |
| Abstract | This paper introduces a new program to find high-redshift radio galaxies in the Southern hemisphere through ultrasteep spectrum (USS) selection. We define a sample of 234 USS radio sources with spectral indices α843408 <= -1.0 (Sν ~ να) and flux densities S408 >= 200mJy in a region of 0.35sr, chosen by cross-correlating the revised 408MHz Molonglo Reference Catalogue, the 843MHz Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey and the 1400MHz NRAO VLA Sky Survey in the overlap region -40° < δ < -30°. We present Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) high-resolution 1384 and 2368MHz radio data for each source, which we use to analyse the morphological, spectral index and polarization properties of our sample. We find that 85 per cent of the sources have observed-frame spectral energy distributions that are straight over the frequency range 408-2368MHz, and that, on average, sources with smaller angular sizes have slightly steeper spectral indices and lower fractional linear polarization. Fractional polarization is anticorrelated with flux density at both 1400 and 2368MHz. We also use the ATCA data to determine observed-frame Faraday rotation measures for half of the sample. |
| Objects | 251 Objects Search NED ↙ |
