The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey V. Second data release

Shimwell, T. W.; Hardcastle, M. J.; Tasse, C.; Best, P. N.; Rottgering, H. J. A.; Williams, W. L.; Botteon, A.; Drabent, A.; Mechev, A.; Shulevski, A.; Weeren, R. J. van; Bester, L.; Bruggen, M.; Brunetti, G.; Callingham, J. R.; Conway, J. E.; Dijkema, T. J.; Duncan, K.; de Gasperin, F.; Hale, C. L.; Haverkorn, M.; Hugo, B.; Jackson, N.; Mevius, M.; Miley, G. K.; Morabito, L. K.; Morganti, R.; Offringa, A.; Oonk, J. B. R.; Rafferty, D.; Sabater, J.; Smith, D. J. B.; Schwarz, D. J.; Smirnov, O.; O'Sullivan, S. P.; Vedantham, H.; White, G. J.; Albert, J. G.; Alegre, L.; Asabere, B.; Bacon, D. J.; Bonafede, A.; Bonnassieux, E.; Brienza, M.; Bilicki, M.; Bonato, M.; Rivera, G. Calistro; Cassano, R.; Cochrane, R.; Croston, J. H.; Cuciti, V.; Dallacasa, D.; Danezi, A.; Dettmar, R. J.; Di Gennaro, G.; Edler, H. W.; Ensslin, T. A.; Emig, K. L.; Franzen, T. M. O.; Garcia-Vergara, C.; Grange, Y. G.; Gurkan, G.; Hajduk, M.; Heald, G.; Heesen, V.; Hoang, D. N.; Hoeft, M.; Horellou, C.; Iacobelli, M.; Jamrozy, M.; Jelic, V.; Kondapally, R.; Kukreti, P.; Kunert-Bajraszewska, M.; Magliocchetti, M.; Mahatma, V.; Malek, K.; Mandal, S.; Massaro, F.; Meyer-Zhao, Z.; Mingo, B.; Mostert, R. I. J.; Nair, D. G.; Nakoneczny, S. J.; Orru, E.; Pasini, T.; Prandoni, I.; Piggelen, H. E. van; Rajpurohit, K.; Retana-Montenegro, E.; Riseley, C. J.; Rowlinson, A.; Saxena, A.; Schrijvers, C.; Sweijen, F.; Siewert, T. M.; Timmerman, R.; Vaccari, M.; Vink, J.; West, J. L.; Zhang, X. und Zheng, J. (2022): The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey V. Second data release. In: Astronomy & Astrophysics, Bd. 659, A1

Abstract

In this data release from the ongoing LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) Two-metre Sky Survey we present 120-168 MHz images covering 27% of the northern sky. Our coverage is split into two regions centred at approximately 12h45m +44 degrees 30' and 1h00m +28 degrees 00' and spanning 4178 and 1457 square degrees respectively. The images were derived from 3451 h (7.6 PB) of LOFAR High Band Antenna data which were corrected for the direction-independent instrumental properties as well as direction-dependent ionospheric distortions during extensive, but fully automated, data processing. A catalogue of 4 396 228 radio sources is derived from our total intensity (Stokes I) maps, where the majority of these have never been detected at radio wavelengths before. At 6 '' resolution, our full bandwidth Stokes I continuum maps with a central frequency of 144 MHz have: a median rms sensitivity of 83 mu Jy beam(-1);a flux density scale accuracy of approximately 10%;an astrometric accuracy of 0.2 '';and we estimate the point-source completeness to be 90% at a peak brightness of 0.8 mJy beam(-1). By creating three 16 MHz bandwidth images across the band we are able to measure the in-band spectral index of many sources, albeit with an error on the derived spectral index of > +/- 0.2 which is a consequence of our flux-density scale accuracy and small fractional bandwidth. Our circular polarisation (Stokes V) 20 '' resolution 120-168 MHz continuum images have a median rms sensitivity of 95 mu Jy beam(-1), and we estimate a Stokes Ito Stokes V leakage of 0.056%. Our linear polarisation (Stokes Q and Stokes U) image cubes consist of 480 x 97.6 kHz wide planes and have a median rms sensitivity per plane of 10.8 mu Jy beam(-1) at 4' and 2.2 mu Jy beam(-1) at 20 '';we estimate the Stokes I to Stokes Q/U leakage to be approximately 0.2%. Here we characterise and publicly release our Stokes I, Q, U and V images in addition to the calibrated uv-data to facilitate the thorough scientific exploitation of this unique dataset.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• ISSN: 0004-6361
• Sprache: Englisch
• DFG: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - 390833306