OVRO 40-m 31-GHz Radio Source Catalog for Extragalactic AGNs

From September 2000 to December 2002, the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40-m telescope conducted a 31-GHz survey of 3165 known extragalactic radio sources over 143 square degrees of sky. The catalog contains data on 1675 sources, with an 11% detection rate, and was created by NASA HEASARC in June 2012 based on published research. This work characterizes the impact of discrete source foregrounds on arcminute-scale anisotropy measurements.

Use Cases

• Modeling foreground contamination for cosmic microwave background anisotropy studies based on the 31-GHz source counts.
• Analyzing the spectral index distribution of extragalactic radio sources based on the 1.4-31 GHz flux ratios.
• Comparing detection rates and source properties between different radio telescopes based on the OVRO and GBT campaigns mentioned.
• Predicting source counts at high radio frequencies based on the derived spectral-index distribution combined with 1.4GHz counts.

Strengths

• Observational data from a dedicated telescope campaign spanning over two years (2000-2002).
• Includes a maximum-likelihood analysis providing an unbiased estimate of spectral index distribution with reported error margins.
• Catalog contains data on 1675 sources with clear detection flags for sources above a 4-sigma threshold.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown for the full dataset, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The detection rate for the OVRO measurements was 11%, indicating many non-detections.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA HEASARC)

Collection Method

Observational survey using the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40-m telescope at 31 GHz.

Time Range

2000 September through 2002 December

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 19:01:11.920613; freshness should be verified.

Geography

143 square degrees of sky (extragalactic)