The LOFAR Two Metre Sky Survey Data Release 2: Probabilistic Spectral Source Classifications and Faint Radio Source Demographics: LoTSS DR2 Classifications

Alyssa Drake, Daniel Smith, Martin Hardcastle, Philip Best, Rohit Kondapally, Marina Arnaudova, Soumyadeep Das, Shravya Shenoy, Ken Duncan, H.J.A. Rottgering, Cyril Tasse

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Abstract

We present an analysis of 152,355 radio sources identified in the second data release of the LOFAR Two Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS-DR2) with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic redshifts in the range 0.00 < 𝑧 < 0.57. Using Monte Carlo simulations we determine the reliability of each source exhibiting an excess in radio luminosity relative to that predicted from their H𝛼 emission, and, for a subset of 124,023 sources we combine this measurement with a full BPT analysis. Using these two independent diagnostics we determine the reliability of each source hosting a supermassive black hole of high or low Eddington-scaled accretion rate, and combine the measurements to determine the reliability of sources belonging to each of four physical classes of objects: star forming galaxies (SFGs), radio-quiet active galactic nuclei (RQAGN), and high- or low-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs or emission-line LERGs). The result is a catalogue which enables user-defined samples of radio sources with a reliability threshold suited to their science goal e.g. prioritising purity or completeness. Here we select high-confidence samples of radio sources (>90% reliability) to report: 38,588 radio-excess AGN in the LoTSS DR2 sample (362 HERGs, and 12,648 emission-line LERGs), together with 38,729 SFGs, and 18,726 RQAGN. We validate these results through comparison to literature using independent emission-line measurements, and to widely-adopted WISE photometric selection techniques. While our use of SDSS spectroscopy limits our current analysis to ∼ 4 percent of the LoTSS-DR2 catalogue, our method is directly applicable to data from the forthcoming WEAVE-LOFAR survey which will obtain over a million spectra of 144 MHz selected sources.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-20
Number of pages20
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 9 Aug 2024

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