The ATLAS 5.5 GHz survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: Catalogue, Source Counts and Spectral Indices. (arXiv:1208.6306v1 [astro-ph.CO])

The ATLAS 5.5 GHz survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field South: Catalogue, Source Counts and Spectral Indices. (arXiv:1208.6306v1 [astro-ph.CO]):
Star forming galaxies are thought to dominate the sub-mJy radio population,
but recent work has shown that low luminosity AGN can still make a significant
contribution to the faint radio source population. Spectral indices are an
important tool for understanding the emission mechanism of the faint radio
sources. We have observed the extended Chandra Deep Field South at 5.5 GHz
using a mosaic of 42 pointings with the Australia Telescope Compact Array
(ATCA). Our image reaches an almost uniform sensitivity of ~12 microJy rms over
0.25 deg^2 with a restoring beam of 4.9 x 2.0 arcsec, making it one of the
deepest 6cm surveys to date. We present the 5.5 GHz catalogue and source counts
from this field. We take advantage of the large amounts of ancillary data in
this field to study the 1.4 to 5.5 GHz spectral indices of the sub-mJy
population. For the full 5.5 GHz selected sample we find a flat median spectral
index, alpha_med = -0.40, which is consistent with previous results. However,
the spectral index appears to steepen at the faintest flux density levels
(S_{5.5 GHz} < 0.1 mJy), where alpha_med = -0.68. We performed stacking
analysis of the faint 1.4 GHz selected sample (40 < S_{1.4 GHz} < 200 microJy)
and also find a steep average spectral index, alpha = -0.8, consistent with
synchrotron emission. We find a weak trend of steepening spectral index with
redshift. Several young AGN candidates are identified using spectral indices,
suggesting Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) sources are as common in the mJy
population as they are at Jy levels.