Using Wide-Area Surveys to Study the Faint Radio Sky: Median stacking and a new 1.4 GHz survey of the Sloan Digital Sky survey Southern Equatorial Stripe

Details Using Wide-Area Surveys to Study the Faint Radio Sky: Median stacking and a new 1.4 GHz survey of the Sloan Digital Sky survey Southern Equatorial Stripe Using Wide-Area Surveys to Study the Faint Radio Sky: Median stacking and a new 1.4 GHz survey of the Sloan Digital Sky survey Southern Equatorial Stripe

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010phdt.......167h&link_type=abstract

ProQuest Dissertations And Theses; Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Davis, 2010.; Publication Number: AAT 3436489; ISBN

Computer Science

Scientific paper

In this dissertation, I describe work I have done to investigate the faint radio sky using wide-area surveys. In the first half, I do this by using a novel stacking technique along with existing surveys in order to reach flux densities down to the 10s of muJy. I examine a population of optically-quiescent galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Using the stacked radio emission as an indicator of the star formation rate, I show that the radio emission from the SDSS MAIN Galaxy sample is most likely due to star formation, while that of quiescent Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) is due to Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) activity, and I discuss the implications this holds. I then examine a larger sample of LRGs, and I explore the dependence of the low-luminosity AGN emission on luminosity and redshift. I present evidence for cosmic downsizing in the radio AGN population, and I also discover considerable evolution in the sample with cosmic redshift. In the second half, I continue my exploration of the faint radio population by using a new wide-area radio survey: a high-resolution 1.4 GHz survey of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Southern Equatorial Stripe, a.k.a. Stripe 82. I discuss the survey, which has an angular resolution of 1.8" and achieves a median rms noise of 52 muJy beam-1 over 92 deg2. This is the largest 1.4 GHz survey for its depth. I present a source catalog of 17,969 isolated radio components, and I analyze various aspects of the catalog for quality control. I then use the catalog, along with two previous epochs of FIRST data, to conduct a blind survey for extragalactic radio variability down to the mJy level. I report the discovery of 103 variable radio sources, and I investigate the radio and optical properties of the sample. I find that the large majority of variable sources at these flux densities appear to be AGN in galaxies rather than quasars, and only a small percentage show evidence for radio jets and/or lobes. This survey constitutes the most extensive study of mJy AGN variability to date.

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