POLARIZED RADIO SOURCES: A STUDY OF LUMINOSITY, REDSHIFT, AND INFRARED COLORS

Abstract

The Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory Deep Field polarization study has been matched with the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey of the European Large Area Infrared Space Observatory Survey North 1 field. We have used Very Large Array observations with a total intensity rms of 87μJy beam−1 to match SWIRE counterparts to the radio sources. Infrared color analysis of our radio sample shows that the majority of polarized sources are elliptical galaxies with an embedded active galactic nucleus. Using available redshift catalogs, we found 429 radio sources of which 69 are polarized with redshifts in the range of 0.04 <z< 3.2. We find no correlation between redshift and percentage polarization for our sample. However, for polarized radio sources, we find a weak correlation between increasing percentage polarization and decreasing luminosity. Show more