MIGHTEE: The continuum survey data release 1

Hale, C. L., Heywood, I., Jarvis, M. J., Whittam, I. H., Best, P. N., An, Fangxia, Bowler, R. A . A., Harrison, I. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4437-0770, Matthews, A., Smith, D. J. B., Taylor, A. R. and Vaccari, M. 2025. MIGHTEE: The continuum survey data release 1. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 536 (3) , pp. 2187-2211. 10.1093/mnras/stae2528

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Abstract

The MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration Survey (MIGHTEE) is one of the large survey projects using the MeerKAT telescope, covering four fields that have a wealth of ancillary data available. We present Data Release 1 of the MIGHTEE continuum survey, releasing total intensity images and catalogues over ∼20 deg2, across three fields at ∼1.2-1.3 GHz. This includes 4.2 deg2 over the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field, 14.4 deg2 over the XMM Large-Scale Structure (XMM-LSS) field and deeper imaging over 1.5 deg2 of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS). We release images at both a lower resolution (7–9 arcsec) and higher resolution (∼5 arcsec). These images have central rms sensitivities of ∼1.3 −2.7 μJy beam−1 (∼1.2 −3.6 μJy beam−1) in the lower (higher) resolution images respectively. We also release catalogues comprised of ∼144 000 (∼114 000) sources using the lower (higher) resolution images. We compare the astrometry and flux-density calibration with the Early Science data in the COSMOS and XMM-LSS fields and previous radio observations in the CDFS field, finding broad agreement. Furthermore, we extend the source counts at the ∼10 μJy level to these larger areas (∼20 deg2) and, using the areal coverage of MIGHTEE we measure the sample variance for differing areas of sky. We find a typical sample variance of 10-20percnt for 0.3 and 0.5 sq. deg. sub-regions at S1.4 ≤ 200 μJy, which increases at brighter flux densities, given the lower source density and expected higher galaxy bias for these sources.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2024-11-10
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	0035-8711
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 November 2024
Date of Acceptance:	7 October 2024
Last Modified:	21 Jan 2025 14:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174152

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