Open AccessThe Phoenix survey: the pairing fraction of faint radio sources
Author(s) -
Georgakakis A. E.,
Mobasher B.,
Cram L.,
Hopkins A.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1999.03141.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , galaxy , source counts , radio galaxy , astronomy , x shaped radio galaxy , pairing , flux (metallurgy) , population , redshift , quantum mechanics , materials science , demography , superconductivity , sociology , metallurgy
The significance of tidal interactions in the evolution of the faint radio population (sub‐mJy) is studied using a deep and homogeneous radio survey (1.4 GHz), covering an area of 3.14 deg 2 and complete to a flux density of 0.4 mJy. Optical photometric and spectroscopic data are also available for this sample. A statistical approach is employed to identify candidate physical associations between radio sources and optically selected ‘field’ galaxies. We find an excess of close pairs around optically identified faint radio sources, albeit at a low significance level, implying that the pairing fraction of the sub‐mJy radio sources is similar to that of ‘field’ galaxies (at the same magnitude limit) but higher than that of local galaxies.