Poster abstract details

A deep polarization study of the ELAIS N1 field at 1.4 GHz with the DRAO-ST and the VLA
J. K. Grant, J. M. Stil, A. R. Taylor, T. L. Landecker, R. Kothes, R. R. Ransom

Abstract

The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory synthesis telescope (DRAO-ST) was used to produce a deep polarization mosaic at 1.4 GHz to a noise level of 45 $\mu$Jy/beam for both Stokes Q and U at one arcminute resolution. The DRAO deep field covers 10.6 square degrees centred on the ELAIS N1 field which is one of the SWIRE extragalactic windows. We have identified over 100 linearly polarized radio sources and over 1000 total intensity (Stokes I) radio sources down to a flux density level of 225 $\mu$Jy/beam. We find that the euclidean-normalized DRAO deep field polarized source counts remain constant down to a flux density level of 500 $\mu$Jy. These faint polarized radio sources are mostly AGNs with luminosities below the traditional FRI/FRII boundary. Models of polarized source counts, predicted from the bright radio sources, begin to decrease at a polarized flux density of 3 mJy. However, our observed polarized radio source counts remain constant below a polarized flux density level of 3 mJy which indicates that the number of polarized sources is larger than predicted. These faint polarized radio sources also have on average $\sim$3 times higher fractional polarization than the polarized radio strong sources. As a follow-up to the source count analysis, we used the Very Large Array (VLA) to achieve high-resolution polarimetric imaging of a complete sample of polarized sources in the DRAO deep field down to a polarized flux density level of 1 mJy, allowing us to classify the Stokes I and polarization morphologies of these sources. Our results provide insight as to the nature of the faint polarized radio source population.