A GMRT survey of regions towards the Taurus Molecular Cloud at 323 and 608 MHz

TL;DR

This GMRT survey at 323 and 608 MHz mapped the Taurus Molecular Cloud regions, cataloging over 2000 sources, and provides valuable data for future star formation and extragalactic studies.

Contribution

The paper presents a comprehensive low-frequency radio survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud, including a catalog of thousands of sources, which enhances previous observations and aids future research.

Findings

Cataloged 1815 sources at 323 MHz and 687 at 608 MHz.

Detected 440 sources at both frequencies, totaling 2062 unique sources.

No additional YSOs found beyond targeted ones, but data useful for future studies.

Abstract

We present observations of three active sites of star formation in the Taurus Molecular Cloud complex taken at 323 and 608 MHz (90 and 50 cm, respectively) with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT). Three pointings were observed as part of a pathfinder project, targeted at the young stellar objects (YSOs) L1551 IRS 5, T Tau and DG Tau (the results for these target sources were presented in a previous paper). In this paper, we search for other YSOs and present a survey comprising of all three fields; a by-product of the large instantaneous field of view of the GMRT. The resolution of the survey is of order 10 arcsec and the best rms noise at the centre of each pointing is of order $100\,\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ at 323 MHz and $50\,\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ at 608 MHz. We present a catalogue of 1815 and 687 field sources detected above $5\,\sigma_{\rm rms}$ at 323 and 608 MHz, respectively. A total of 440 sources were detected at both frequencies, corresponding to a total unique source count of 2062 sources. We compare the results with previous surveys and showcase a sample of extended extragalactic objects. Although no further YSOs were detected in addition to the target YSOs based on our source finding criteria, these data can be useful for targeted manual searches, studies of radio galaxies or to assist in the calibration of future observations with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) towards these regions.