A 31 GHz survey of low-frequency selected radio sources

Abstract

The 100 m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope and the 40 m Owens Valley Radio Observatory telescope have been used to conduct a 31 GHz survey of 3165 known extragalactic radio sources over 143 deg2 of the sky. Target sources were selected from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey in fields observed by the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI); most are extragalactic active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with 1.4 GHz flux densities of 3-10 mJy. The resulting 31 GHz catalogs are presented in full online. Using a maximum-likelihood analysis to obtain an unbiased estimate of the distribution of the 1.4-31 GHz spectral indices of these sources, we find a mean 31-1.4 GHz flux ratio of 0.110 0.003 corresponding to a spectral index of α = -0.71 0.01 (S ν να); 9.0% 0.8% of sources have α > - 0.5 and 1.2% 0.2% have α > 0. By combining this spectral-index distribution with 1.4 GHz source counts, we predict 31 GHz source counts in the range 1 mJy < S 31 < 4 mJy, N(>S 31) = (16.7 1.7) deg-2(S 31/1 mJy)-0.800.07. We also assess the contribution of mJy-level (S 1.4 GHz < 3.4 mJy) radio sources to the 31 GHz cosmic microwave background power spectrum, finding a mean power of ℓ(ℓ + 1)C srcℓ/(2π) = 44 14 μK2 and a 95% upper limit of 80 μK2 at ℓ = 2500. Including an estimated contribution of 12 μK2 from the population of sources responsible for the turn-up in counts below S 1.4 GHz = 1 mJy, this amounts to 21% 7% of what is needed to explain the CBI high-ℓ excess signal, 275 63 μK2. These results are consistent with other measurements of the 31 GHz point-source foreground. © 2009 The American Astronomical Society.