RESOLVING THE RADIO SOURCE BACKGROUND: DEEPER UNDERSTANDING THROUGH CONFUSION

We used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array to image one primary beam area at 3 GHz with 8″ FWHM resolution and 1.0 μJy beam−1 rms noise near the pointing center. The P(D) distribution from the central 10 arcmin of this confusion-limited image constrains the count of discrete sources in the 1 < S(μJy) < 10 range. At this level, the brightness-weighted differential count S2n(S) is converging rapidly, as predicted by evolutionary models in which the faintest radio sources are star-forming galaxies; and ≈96% of the background originating in galaxies has been resolved into discrete sources. About 63% of the radio background is produced by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and the remaining 37% comes from star-forming galaxies that obey the far-infrared (FIR)/radio correlation and account for most of the FIR background at λ ≈ 160 μm. Our new data confirm that radio sources powered by AGNs and star formation evolve at about the same rate, a result consistent with AGN feedback and the rough correlation of black hole and stellar masses. The confusion at centimeter wavelengths is low enough that neither the planned Square Kilometre Array nor its pathfinder ASKAP EMU survey should be confusion limited, and the ultimate source detection limit imposed by “natural” confusion is ⩽0.01 μJy at ν = 1.4 GHz. If discrete sources dominate the bright extragalactic background reported by ARCADE 2 at 3.3 GHz, they cannot be located in or near galaxies and most are ⩽0.03 μJy at 1.4 GHz.