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Paper: Deep Radio Surveys
Volume: 380, At the Edge of the Universe: Latest Results from the Deepest Astronomical Surveys
Page: 189
Authors: Condon, J.J.
Abstract: All radio surveys are deep in redshift and lookback time; sensitive radio surveys detect sources of lower luminosity. Every luminous radio galaxy and quasar out to z ~ 10 has already been found by all-sky surveys and needs only to be identified. Star-forming galaxies dominate the population of sources fainter than S ≈ 0.1mJy at 1.4GHz, and sensitive surveys indicate strong evolution of the cosmic star-formation rate out to z ≈ 1. The large differences among source counts from existing deep surveys seem to be dominated by instrumental and analysis effects, not by cosmic variance. Using power-density functions instead of luminosity functions and weighting source counts by S2 clarifies the contributions of different galaxy populations to the star-formation-rate density and to the radio sky background. Future surveys will require very high dynamic range and should not be limited by natural confusion above S ~ 0.01 μJy.
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