The Herschel-ATLAS Data Release 2 Paper II: Catalogues of far-infrared and submillimetre sources in the fields at the south and north Galactic Poles

TL;DR

This paper presents detailed catalogs of far-infrared and submillimetre sources detected in the Herschel-ATLAS survey fields at the Galactic Poles, including data processing, accuracy assessments, and statistical analyses.

Contribution

It provides the second data release catalogues with comprehensive source detection, photometry, and accuracy evaluations for large Herschel survey fields.

Findings

Catalogues contain over 150,000 sources in each field.

Positional accuracy is approximately 2.4 arcseconds.

The catalogues include multi-band photometry and reliability assessments.

Abstract

The {\it Herschel} Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) is a survey of 660 deg$^2$ with the PACS and SPIRE cameras in five photometric bands: 100, 160, 250, 350 and 500\mic. This is the second of three papers describing the data release for the large fields at the south and north Galactic poles (NGP and SGP). In this paper we describe the catalogues of far-infrared and submillimetre sources for the NGP and SGP, which cover 177 deg$^2$ and 303 deg$^2$, respectively. The catalogues contain 153,367 sources for the NGP field and 193,527 sources for the SGP field detected at more than 4$\sigma$ significance in any of the 250, 350 or 500\mic\ bands. The source detection is based on the 250\mic\ map, and we present photometry in all five bands for each source, including aperture photometry for sources known to be extended. The rms positional accuracy for the faintest sources is about 2.4 arc seconds in both right ascension and declination. We present a statistical analysis of the catalogues and discuss the practical issues -- completeness, reliability, flux boosting, accuracy of positions, accuracy of flux measurements -- necessary to use the catalogues for astronomical projects.