The Large Area Radio Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Survey (LARGESS): Survey design, data catalogue and GAMA/WiggleZ spectroscopy

TL;DR

LARGESS is a comprehensive spectroscopic survey of radio sources covering 800 square degrees, providing valuable data on radio AGN populations and their properties up to redshift 0.8, integrating data from multiple surveys.

Contribution

This paper introduces the LARGESS survey, combining new and existing spectra to create a large, detailed catalogue of radio sources with classifications and redshifts.

Findings

85% of sources are radio AGN with median z=0.44

Majority (83%) of radio AGN are low-excitation radio galaxies

HERGs are diverse, often with recent star formation and accretion disks

Abstract

We present the Large Area Radio Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Survey (LARGESS), a spectroscopic catalogue of radio sources designed to include the full range of radio AGN populations out to redshift z = 0.8. The catalogue covers roughly 800 square degrees of sky, and provides optical identifications for 19,179 radio sources from the 1.4 GHz Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm (FIRST) survey down to an optical magnitude limit of i_mod < 20.5 in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images. Both galaxies and point-like objects are included, and no colour cuts are applied. In collaboration with the WiggleZ and Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) spectroscopic survey teams, we have obtained new spectra for over 5,000 objects in the LARGESS sample. Combining these new spectra with data from earlier surveys provides spectroscopic data for 12,329 radio sources in the survey area, of which 10,856 have reliable redshifts. 85% of the LARGESS spectroscopic sample are radio AGN (median redshift z = 0.44), and 15% are nearby star-forming galaxies (median z = 0.08). Low-excitation radio galaxies (LERGs) comprise the majority (83%) of LARGESS radio AGN at z < 0.8, with 12% being high-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs) and 5% radio-loud QSOs. Unlike the more homogeneous LERG and QSO sub-populations, HERGs are a heterogeneous class of objects with relatively blue optical colours and a wide dispersion in mid-infrared colours. This is consistent with a picture in which most HERGs are hosted by galaxies with recent or ongoing star formation as well as a classical accretion disk.