A Census of the Deep Radio Sky with the VLA I: 10GHz Survey of the GOODS-N field

TL;DR

This paper presents the first high-resolution, high-frequency radio survey of the GOODS-N field at 10GHz, mapping faint radio sources with detailed source cataloging and analysis of source counts.

Contribution

It provides the first 10GHz deep radio survey of GOODS-N with high resolution and sensitivity, including a comprehensive catalog and analysis of source counts compared to models.

Findings

Catalog contains 256 radio sources with >5σ detection

Radio source counts agree with models and lower-frequency surveys

Achieved high angular resolution of 0.22 arcsec

Abstract

We present the first high-resolution, high-frequency radio continuum survey that fully maps an extragalactic deep field: the 10GHz survey of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-North (GOODS-N) field. This is a Large Program of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array that allocated 380 hours of observations using the X-band ($8-12$GHz) receivers, leading to a 10GHz mosaic of the GOODS-field with an average rms noise $\sigma_{\rm n}=671\,\rm nJy\,beam^{-1}$ and angular resolution $\theta_{1/2}=0.22$arcsec across 297$\rm arcmin^2$. To maximize the brightness sensitivity we also produce a low-resolution mosaic with $\theta_{1/2}=1.0$arcsec and $\sigma_{\rm n}=968\,\rm nJy\,beam^{-1}$, from which we derive our master catalog containing 256 radio sources detected with peak signal-to-noise ratio $\geq 5$. Radio source size and flux density estimates from the high-resolution mosaic are provided in the master catalog as well. The total fraction of spurious sources in the catalog is 0.75%. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to derive completeness corrections of the catalog. We find that the 10GHz radio source counts in the GOODS-N field agree, in general, with predictions from numerical simulations/models and expectations from 1.4 and 3GHz radio counts.