The VLA Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South. V. Evolution and Luminosity Functions of sub-mJy radio sources and the issue of radio emission in radio-quiet AGN

Details The VLA Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South. V. Evolution and Luminosity Functions of sub-mJy radio sources and the issue of radio emission in radio-quiet AGN The VLA Survey of the Chandra Deep Field South. V. Evolution and Luminosity Functions of sub-mJy radio sources and the issue of radio emission in radio-quiet AGN

2011-07-14

arxiv.org/abs/1107.2759v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

19 pages, 14 figures (8 in color), accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

Scientific paper

We present the evolutionary properties and luminosity functions of the radio sources belonging to the Chandra Deep Field South VLA survey, which reaches a flux density limit at 1.4 GHz of 43 microJy at the field center and redshift ~5, and which includes the first radio-selected complete sample of radio-quiet active galactic nuclei (AGN). We use a new, comprehensive classification scheme based on radio, far- and near-IR, optical, and X-ray data to disentangle star-forming galaxies from AGN and radio-quiet from radio-loud AGN. We confirm our previous result that star-forming galaxies become dominant only below 0.1 mJy. The sub-mJy radio sky turns out to be a complex mix of star-forming galaxies and radio-quiet AGN evolving at a similar, strong rate; non-evolving low-luminosity radio galaxies; and declining radio powerful (P > 3 10^24 W/Hz) AGN. Our results suggest that radio emission from radio-quiet AGN is closely related to star formation. The detection of compact, high brightness temperature cores in several nearby radio-quiet AGN can be explained by the co-existence of two components, one non-evolving and AGN-related and one evolving and star-formation-related. Radio-quiet AGN are an important class of sub-mJy sources, accounting for ~30% of the sample and ~60% of all AGN, and outnumbering radio-loud AGN at < 0.1 mJy. This implies that future, large area sub-mJy surveys, given the appropriate ancillary multi-wavelength data, have the potential of being able to assemble vast samples of radio-quiet AGN by-passing the problems of obscuration, which plague the optical and soft X-ray bands.

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