The AT20G high angular resolution catalogue

TL;DR

This paper presents a high angular resolution catalogue for the AT20G survey, distinguishing compact AGNs from extended sources at 20 GHz, and introduces a diagnostic plot to classify radio source populations.

Contribution

It provides the first high-resolution visibility catalogue for AT20G, enabling detailed classification of radio sources and identification of high-quality calibrators for radio astronomy.

Findings

77% of sources are compact AGNs

Introduced visibility-spectra diagnostic plot

Identified populations including planetary nebulae and black hole candidates

Abstract

We present the high angular resolution catalogue for the Australia Telescope 20 GHz (AT20G) survey, using the high angular resolution 6-km antenna data at the baselines of ~ 4500 m of the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). We have used the data to produce the visibility catalogue that separates the compact Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) from the extended radio sources at the 0.15 arcsec angular scale, corresponding to the linear size scale of 1 kpc at redshifts higher than 0.7. We find the radio population at 20 GHz to be dominated by compact AGNs constituting 77% of the total sources in the AT20G. We introduce the visibility-spectra diagnostic plot, produced using the AT20G cross-matches with lower frequency radio surveys at 1 GHz (the NRAO-VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) and the Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey (SUMSS)), that separates the 20 GHz population into distinct sub-populations of the compact AGNs, the compact steep-spectrum sources, the extended AGN-powered sources and extended flat-spectrum sources. The extended flat-spectrum sources include a local thermal emitting population of high latitude planetary nebulae and also gravitational lens and binary black hole candidates among the AGNs. We find a smooth transition in properties between the compact CSS sources and the AGN populations. The visibility catalogue, together with the main AT20G survey, provides an estimate of angular size scales for sources in the AT20G and an estimate of the flux arising from central cores of extended radio sources. The identification of the compact AGNs in the AT20G survey provides high quality calibrators for high frequency radio telescope arrays and VLBI observations.