20 cm VLA Radio-Continuum study of M 31 - Images and point source catalogues

Abstract

We present a series of new high-sensitivity and high-resolution radio-continuum images of M 31 at λ=20 cm (ν=1.4 GHz). These new images were produced by merging archived 20 cm radio-continuum observations from the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope. Images presented here are sensitive to rms=60 μJy and feature high angular resolution (<10′). Acompletesampleofdiscreteradio sources have been catalogued and analysed across 17 individual VLA projects. We identified a total of 864 unique discrete radio sources across the field of M 31. One of the most prominent regions in M 31 is the ring feature for which we estimated total integrated flux of 706 mJy at λ=20 cm. We compare here detected sources to those listed in Gelfand et al. (2004) at λ=92 cm and find 118 sources in common to both surveys. The majority (61%) of these sources exhibit a spectral index of α