The Allen Telescope Array Twenty-centimeter Survey—A 690 deg2, 12 Epoch Radio Data Set. I. Catalog and Long-duration Transient Statistics

We present the Allen Telescope Array Twenty-centimeter Survey (ATATS), a multi-epoch (12 visits), 690 deg² radio image and catalog at 1.4 GHz. The survey is designed to detect rare, very bright transients as well as to verify the capabilities of the ATA to form large mosaics. The combined image using data from all 12 ATATS epochs has rms noise σ = 3.94 mJy beam^-1 and dynamic range 180, with a circular beam of 150'' FWHM. It contains 4408 sources to a limiting sensitivity of 5σ = 20 mJy beam^-1. We compare the catalog generated from this 12 epoch combined image to the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS), a legacy survey at the same frequency, and find that we can measure source positions to better than ~20''. For sources above the ATATS completeness limit, the median flux density is 97% of the median value for matched NVSS sources, indicative of an accurate overall flux calibration. We examine the effects of source confusion due to the effects of differing resolution between ATATS and NVSS on our ability to compare flux densities. We detect no transients at flux densities greater than 40 mJy in comparison with NVSS and place a 2σ upper limit of 0.004 deg^-2 on the transient rate for such sources. These results suggest that the gsim1 Jy transients reported by Matsumara et al. may not be true transients, but rather variable sources at their flux density threshold.