THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY Pi GHz SKY SURVEY. I. SURVEY DESCRIPTION AND STATIC CATALOG RESULTS FOR THE BOOeTES FIELD

Journal Article · Mon Dec 20 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/725/2/1792· OSTI ID:21476671

Bower, Geoffrey C; Croft, Steve; Keating, Garrett; Whysong, David; Backer, Don; Bauermeister, Amber; Blitz, Leo; Bock, Douglas; Cheng, Calvin; Dexter, Matt; Engargiola, Greg ^[1]; Ackermann, Rob; Atkinson, Shannon; Backus, Peter; Bradford, Tucker; Davis, Mike; Dreher, John ^[2]; Barott, Billy ^[3]; Cork, Chris ^[4]; DeBoer, Dave ^[5]

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1. University of California, Berkeley, 601 Campbell Hall 3411, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
2. SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043 (United States)
3. Electrical and Systems Engineering Department, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL 32114 (United States)
4. Minex Engineering, Antioch, CA 94509 (United States)
5. CSIRO/ATNF, Epping, NSW 1710 (Australia)

The Pi GHz Sky Survey (PiGSS) is a key project of the Allen Telescope Array. PiGSS is a 3.1 GHz survey of radio continuum emission in the extragalactic sky with an emphasis on synoptic observations that measure the static and time-variable properties of the sky. During the 2.5 year campaign, PiGSS will twice observe {approx}250,000 radio sources in the 10,000 deg{sup 2} region of the sky with b>30{sup 0} to an rms sensitivity of {approx}1 mJy. Additionally, sub-regions of the sky will be observed multiple times to characterize variability on timescales of days to years. We present here observations of a 10 deg{sup 2} region in the Booetes constellation overlapping the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey field. The PiGSS image was constructed from 75 daily observations distributed over a 4 month period and has an rms flux density between 200 and 250 {mu}Jy. This represents a deeper image by a factor of 4-8 than we will achieve over the entire 10,000 deg{sup 2}. We provide flux densities, source sizes, and spectral indices for the 425 sources detected in the image. We identify {approx}100 new flat-spectrum radio sources; we project that when completed PiGSS will identify 10{sup 4} flat-spectrum sources. We identify one source that is a possible transient radio source. This survey provides new limits on faint radio transients and variables with characteristic durations of months.

• OSTI ID: 21476671
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 725, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/725/2/1792; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
CATALOGS
FLUX DENSITY
GALAXIES
SENSITIVITY
STARS
TELESCOPES
DOCUMENT TYPES