Identifying Compact Symmetric Objects in the Southern Sky

We present results of multifrequency polarimetric VLBA observations of 20compact radio sources. The observations represent the northern and southernextensions of a large survey undertaken to identify Compact Symmetric Objects(CSOs) Observed in the Northern Sky (COINS). CSOs are young radio galaxieswhose jet axes lie close to the plane of the sky, and whose appearance istherefore not dominated by relativistic beaming effects. The small linear sizesof CSOs make them valuable for studies of both the evolution of radio galaxiesand testing unified schemes for active galactic nuclei (AGN). In this paper wereport on observations made of 20 new CSO candidates discovered in the northernand southern extremities of the VLBA Calibrator Survey. We identify 4 new CSOs,and discard 12 core-jet sources. The remaining 4 sources remain candidatespending further investigation. We present continuum images at 5 GHz and 15 GHzand, where relevant, images of the polarized flux density and spectral indexdistributions for the 8 new CSOs and CSO candidates.Comment: accepted to Ap