MIGHTEE: total intensity radio continuum imaging and the COSMOS / XMM-LSS Early Science fields

Abstract

MIGHTEE is a galaxy evolution survey using simultaneous radio continuum, spectro-polarimetry, and spectral line observations from the South African MeerKAT telescope. When complete, the survey will image $\sim$20 deg${}^2$ over the COSMOS, E-CDFS, ELAIS-S1, and XMM-LSS extragalactic deep fields with a central frequency of 1284 MHz. These were selected based on the extensive multiwavelength datasets from numerous existing and forthcoming observational campaigns. Here we describe and validate the data processing strategy for the total intensity continuum aspect of MIGHTEE, using a single deep pointing in COSMOS (1.6 deg${}^2$) and a three-pointing mosaic in XMM-LSS (3.5 deg${}^2$). The processing includes the correction of direction-dependent effects, and results in thermal noise levels below 2~$\mu$Jy beam${}^{-1}$ in both fields, limited in the central regions by classical confusion at $\sim$8${}^{\prime \prime }$ angular resolution, and meeting the survey specifications. We also produce images at $\sim$5${}^{\prime \prime }$ resolution that are $\sim$3 times shallower. The resulting image products form the basis of the Early Science continuum data release for MIGHTEE. From these images we extract catalogues containing 9,896 and 20,274 radio components in COSMOS and XMM-LSS respectively. We also process a close-packed mosaic of 14 additional pointings in COSMOS and use these in conjunction with the Early Science pointing to investigate methods for primary beam correction of broadband radio images, an analysis that is of relevance to all full-band MeerKAT continuum observations, and wide field interferometric imaging in general. A public release of the MIGHTEE Early Science continuum data products accompanies this article.

arXiv comment21 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, to be published in MNRAS

References in corpus (51)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray
• WSClean: an implementation of a fast, generic wide-field imager for radio astronomy
• The LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey - I. Survey Description and Preliminary Data Release
• GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey I: A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue
• Diffuse Radio Emission from Galaxy Clusters
• The Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview
• The VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz Large Project: Continuum data and source catalog release
• The VISTA Deep Extragalactic Observations (VIDEO) Survey
• A semi-empirical simulation of the extragalactic radio continuum sky for next generation radio telescopes
• Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder: I. System Description
• The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey I: Design and First Results
• Revisiting the radio interferometer measurement equation. I. A full-sky Jones formalism
• Faceting for direction-dependent spectral deconvolution
• The VLA-COSMOS Survey. IV. Deep Data and Joint Catalog
• Resolving the Radio Source Background: Deeper Understanding Through Confusion
• Radio interferometric gain calibration as a complex optimization problem
• The infrared-radio correlation of star-forming galaxies is strongly M${}_{\star }$-dependent but nearly redshift-invariant since z$\sim$4
• The Caltech-NRAO Stripe 82 Survey (CNSS) Paper I: The Pilot Radio Transient Survey In 50 deg${}^2$
• CubiCal - Fast radio interferometric calibration suite exploiting complex optimisation
• The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT DEEP2 Image
• Revisiting the radio interferometer measurement equation. II. Calibration and direction-dependent effects
• Wide-field wide-band interferometric imaging:The WB A-Projection and hybrid algorithms
• The MeqTrees software system and its use for third-generation calibration of radio interferometers
• Herschel-ATLAS: The far-infrared--radio correlation at z<0.5
• MIGHTEE-HI: The HI emission project of the MeerKAT MIGHTEE survey
• Convolution kernels for multi-wavelength imaging
• Radio-Quiet Quasars in the VIDEO Survey: Evidence for AGN-powered radio emission at S_1.4GHz < 1 mJy
• The GOODS-N Jansky VLA 10 GHz Pilot Survey: Sizes of Star-Forming $\mu$Jy Radio Sources
• The Lockman Hole Project: new constraints on the sub-mJy source counts from a wide-area 1.4 GHz mosaic
• A Pilot for a VLA HI Deep Field
• Evidence that the AGN dominates the radio emission in z ~ 1 radio-quiet quasars
• Primary beam effects of radio astronomy antennas -- II. Modelling the MeerKAT L-band beam
• Sample variance, source clustering and their influence on the counts of faint radio sources
• Calibration artefacts in radio interferometry. I. Ghost sources in WSRT data
• Revisiting the radio interferometer measurement equation. III. Addressing direction-dependent effects in 21 cm WSRT observations of 3C 147
• MIGHTEE: Are giant radio galaxies more common than we thought?
• An Ultra-deep Multi-band VLA Survey of the Faint Radio Sky (COSMOS-XS): Source Catalog and Number Counts
• A 325-MHz GMRT survey of the Herschel-ATLAS/GAMA fields
• Deep imaging of Fanaroff-Riley Class I radio galaxies with lobes
• Quantifying Suppression of the Cosmological 21-cm Signal due to Direction Dependent Gain Calibration in Radio Interferometers
• Cosmology with AGN dust time lags -- Simulating the new VEILS survey
• The e-MERLIN Galaxy Evolution Survey (e-MERGE): Overview and Survey Description
• A deep / wide 1-2 GHz snapshot survey of SDSS Stripe 82 using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in a compact hybrid configuration
• VLA imaging of the XMM-LSS / VIDEO deep field at 1-2 GHz
• The faint source population at 15.7 GHz - III. A high-frequency study of HERGs and LERGs
• The prevalence of core emission in faint radio galaxies in the SKA Simulated Skies
• The relation between the diffuse X-ray luminosity and the radio power of the central AGN in galaxy groups
• The VLA Frontier Fields Survey: Deep, High-resolution Radio Imaging of the MACS Lensing Clusters at 3 and 6 GHz
• Field sources near the southern-sky calibrator PKS B1934-638: effect on spectral line observations with SKA-MID and its precursors