MIGHTEE: deep 1.4 GHz source counts and the sky temperature contribution of star-forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei

We present deep 1.4 GHz source counts from similar to 5 deg(2) of the continuum Early Science data release of the MeerKAT International Gigahertz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration surv e y down to S-1.4GHz similar to 5 mu Jy. Using observations o v er two extragalactic fields (COSMOS and XMM-LSS), we provide a comprehensive investigation into correcting the incompleteness of the raw source counts within the surv e y to understand the true underlying source count population. We use a variety of simulations that account for: errors in source detection and characterization, clustering, and variations in the assumed source model used to simulate sources within the field and characterize source count incompleteness. We present these deep source count distributions and use them to investigate the contribution of extragalactic sources to the sky background temperature at 1.4 GHz using a relatively large sky area. We then use the wealth of ancillary data co v ering a subset of the COSMOS field to investigate the specific contributions from both active galactic nuclei (AGN) and star-forming galaxies (SFGs) to the source counts and sky background temperature. We find, similar to previous deep studies, that we are unable to reconcile the sky temperature observed by the ARCADE 2 experiment. We show that AGN provide the majority contribution to the sky temperature contribution from radio sources, but the relative contribution of SFGs rises sharply below 1 mJy, reaching an approximate 15-25 per cent contribution to the total sky background temperature (T-b similar to 100 mK) at similar to 15 mu Jy.

Automated summary

We analyze the 1.4 GHz source counts from the Early Science data release of MeerKAT and correct for the incompleteness to determine the true underlying population. Multiple simulations were used to account for detection errors, clustering, and variations in the assumed source model. Our results show that AGN dominate the sky temperature contribution from radio sources, but below 1 mJy, SFGs become increasingly important, reaching a contribution of approximately 15-25% to the total sky background temperature (T-b approximately 100 mK).