The ATLAS 9.0 GHz survey of the extended Chandra Deep Field South: the faint 9.0 GHz radio population

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present a new image of the 9.0 GHz radio emission from the extended Chandra Deep Field South. A total of 181 h of integration with the Australia Telescope Compact Array has resulted in a 0.276 deg2 image with a median sensitivity of ∼20 µJy beam−1 rms, for a synthesized beam of 4.0 × 1.3 arcsec. We present a catalogue of the 9.0 GHz radio sources, identifying 70 source components and 55 individual radio galaxies. Source counts derived from this sample are consistent with those reported in the literature. The observed source counts are also generally consistent with the source counts from simulations of the faint radio population. Using the wealth of multiwavelength data available for this region, we classify the faint 9 GHz population and find that 91 per cent are radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs), 7 per cent are radio-quiet AGNs, and 2 per cent are star-forming galaxies. The 9.0 GHz radio sources were matched to 5.5 and 1.4 GHz sources in the literature and we find a significant fraction of flat or inverted spectrum sources, with 36 per cent of the 9 GHz sources having $\alpha _{5.5\,\mathrm{ GHz}}^{9.0\,\mathrm{ GHz}}$ > −0.3 (for S ∝ να). This flat or inverted population is not well reproduced by current simulations of radio source populations.