# Radio Sources in the Nearby Universe

## TL;DR

This study catalogs and analyzes radio sources in the nearby universe, distinguishing star formation and active galactic nuclei contributions, and quantifies their luminosity functions and impact on cosmic radio power density.

## Contribution

It provides a comprehensive catalog of NVSS radio sources associated with 2MASX galaxies and derives local spectral luminosity and power-density functions for star-forming and AGN-powered sources.

## Key findings

- Radio sources account for most of the local spectral power density.
- Star formation contributes significantly to the cosmic radio emission.
- Quantified local spectral luminosity functions for different source types.

## Abstract

We identified 15,658 NVSS radio sources among the 55,288 2MASX galaxies brighter than $k_\mathrm{20fe} = 12.25$ at $\lambda = 2.16\,\mu\mathrm{m}$ and covering the $\Omega =7.016$ sr of sky defined by J2000 $\delta > -40^\circ$ and $\vert b \vert > 20^\circ$. The complete sample of 15,043 galaxies with 1.4 GHz flux densities $S \geq 2.45 \mathrm{~mJy}$ contains a 99.9% spectroscopically complete subsample of 9,517 galaxies with $k_\mathrm{20fe} \leq 11.75$. We used only radio and infrared data to quantitatively distinguish radio sources powered primarily by recent star formation from those powered by active galactic nuclei. The radio sources with $\log[L(\mathrm{W~Hz}^{-1})] > 19.3$ that we used to derive the local spectral luminosity and power-density functions account for $>99$% of the total 1.4~GHz spectral power densities $U_\mathrm{SF} = (1.54 \pm 0.20) \times 10^{19} \mathrm{~W~Hz}^{-1} \mathrm{~Mpc}^{-3}$ and $U_\mathrm{AGN} = (4.23 \pm 0.78) \times 10^{19} \mathrm{~W~Hz}^{-1} \mathrm{~Mpc}^{-3}$ in the universe today, and the spectroscopic subsample is large enough that the quoted errors are dominated cosmic variance. The recent comoving star-formation rate density indicated by $U_\mathrm{SF}$ is $\psi \approx 0.015~ M_\odot \mathrm{~yr}^{-1} \mathrm{~Mpc}^{-3}$.