The DRAO Planck Deep Fields: The Polarization Properties of Radio Galaxies at 1.4 GHz

• Published in: The Astrophysical journal Vol. 714; no. 2; pp. 1689 - 1701
• Main Authors: Grant, J. K, Taylor, A. R, Stil, J. M, Landecker, T. L, Kothes, R, Ransom, R. R, Scott, Douglas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 10.05.2010; IOP
• Subjects: Astronomy; ASTROPHYSICS; ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; COSMIC RADIO SOURCES; Earth, ocean, space; EUCLIDEAN SPACE; EVOLUTION; Exact sciences and technology; FLUX DENSITY; GALACTIC EVOLUTION; GALAXIES; MAGNETIC FIELDS; MATHEMATICAL SPACE; PHYSICS; POLARIZATION; RADIO GALAXIES; RIEMANN SPACE; SPACE; Continuum; Galaxy evolution; Polarization; galaxies: magnetic fields; Galaxies; Radio galaxies; galaxies: evolution; Cosmic radio sources; galaxies: individual (ELAIS N1); Magnetic fields; techniques: polarimetric; radio continuum: galaxies
• ISSN: 0004-637X; 1538-4357
• DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/714/2/1689

We present results of deep polarization imaging at 1.4 GHz with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory as part of the DRAO Planck Deep Fields project. This deep extragalactic field covers 15.16 deg{sup 2} centered at {alpha}{sub 2000} = 16{sup h}14{sup m} and {delta}{sub 2000} = 54{sup 0}56', has an angular resolution of 42'' x 62'' at the field center, and reaches a sensitivity of 55 {mu}Jy beam{sup -1} in Stokes I and 45 {mu}Jy beam{sup -1} in Stokes Q and U. We detect 958 radio sources in Stokes I of which 136 are detected in polarization. We present the Euclidean-normalized polarized differential source counts down to 400 {mu}Jy. These counts indicate that sources have a higher degree of fractional polarization at fainter Stokes I flux density levels than for brighter sources, confirming an earlier result. We find that the majority of our polarized sources are steep-spectrum objects with a mean spectral index of -0.77, and there is no correlation between fractional polarization and spectral index. We also matched deep field sources to counterparts in the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters catalog. Of the polarized sources, 77% show structure at the arcsecond scale whereas only 38% of the sources with no detectable polarization show such structure. The median fractional polarization for resolved sources is 6.8%, while it is 4.4% for compact objects. The polarized radio sources in our deep field are predominantly those sources which are resolved and show the highest degrees of fractional polarization, indicating that the lobe dominated structure may be the source of the highly polarized sources. These resolved radio galaxies dominate the polarized source counts at P{sub 0}={radical}(Q{sup 2} + U{sup 2})<3 mJy.