A survey of Low Luminosity Compact sources

TL;DR

This paper presents the initial results of a systematic study on low luminosity compact radio sources, focusing on their properties, morphologies, and potential as short-lived, fading objects that do not evolve into larger radio galaxies.

Contribution

It introduces a new flux-limited sample of low luminosity CSS sources and reports the first observational results from MERLIN, advancing understanding of their nature and evolution.

Findings

Low luminosity CSS sources can be strong candidates for compact faders.

Some small-size radio sources are short-lived due to lack of fueling.

Initial MERLIN observations provide insights into the morphology of these sources.

Abstract

Based on the FIRST and SDSS catalogues a flux density limited sample of weak Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) sources with radio luminosity below 10^26 [W/Hz] at 1.4 GHz has been constructed. Our previous multifrequency observations of CSS sources have shown that low luminosity small-scale objects can be strong candidates for compact faders. This finding supports the idea that some small-size radio sources are short-lived phenomena because of a lack of significant fuelling. They never 'grow up' to become FRI or FRII objects. This new sample marks the start of a systematical study of the radio properties and morphologies of the population of low luminosity compact (LLC) objects. An investigation of this new sample should also lead to a better understanding of compact faders. In this paper, the results of the first stage of the new project - the L-band MERLIN observations of 44 low luminosity CSS sources are presented.