Planck 2015 results. XXVI. The Second Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources

TL;DR

The Second Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources provides an extensive, improved list of Galactic and extragalactic sources detected across the entire sky, including polarization data, based on the full mission data with enhanced processing.

Contribution

This paper introduces the second version of the Planck compact source catalogue, with increased completeness and reliability, incorporating polarization measurements and improved data processing techniques.

Findings

Increased number of detected sources compared to previous catalogues.

Enhanced reliability and completeness of the source list.

Inclusion of polarization measurements for all detected sources.

Abstract

The Second Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources is a catalogue of sources detected in single-frequency maps from the full duration of the Planck mission and supersedes previous versions of the Planck compact source catalogues. It consists of compact sources, both Galactic and extragalactic, detected over the entire sky. Compact sources detected in the lower frequency channels are assigned to the PCCS2, while at higher frequencies they are assigned to one of two sub-catalogues, the PCCS2 or PCCS2E, depending on their location on the sky. The first of these catalogues covers most of the sky and allows the user to produce subsamples at higher reliabilities than the target 80% integral reliability of the catalogue. The PCCS2E contains sources detected in sky regions where the diffuse emission makes it difficult to quantify the reliability of the detections. Both the PCCS2 and PCCS2E include polarization measurements, in the form of polarized flux densities, or upper limits, and orientation angles for all seven polarization-sensitive Planck channels. The improved data-processing of the full-mission maps and their reduced noise levels allow us to increase the number of objects in the catalogue, improving its completeness for the target 80 % reliability as compared with the previous versions, the PCCS and ERCSC catalogues.