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Keck Spectroscopy And Imaging Of Faint Galaxies Identified As Microjansky Radio Sources, Nathan D. Roche, James D. Lowenthal, David C. Koo

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We investigate the nature of the faintest radio sources detected in three Very Large Array surveys, to F(8.5 GHz) ∼ 8 μJy. Using the Keck low-resolution imaging spectrograph in BRI and the near-infrared camera in K′ (2.1 μm), we image 51 radio sources, and identify probable optical counterparts for 50. With low-resolution imaging spectroscopy, we successfully acquire new redshifts for 17 sources. Combining these with nine prior redshifts, we can then analyse a sample of 26 sources with spectroscopic redshifts. Based on this sample of 26, we find the largest contribution, about 60 per cent (15), to be from disc …