The LOFAR view of FR 0 radio galaxies

We explore the low-frequency radio properties of the sources in the Fanaroff-Riley class 0 catalog (FR0CAT) as seen by the Low-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) observations at 150 MHz. This sample includes 104 compact radio active galactic nuclei (AGN) associated with nearby (z < 0.05) massive early-type galaxies. Sixty-six FR0CAT sources are in the sky regions observed by LOFAR and all of them are detected, usually showing point-like structures with sizes of ≲3-6 kpc. However, 12 FR 0s present resolved emission of low surface brightness, which contributes between 5% and 40% of the total radio power at 150 MHz, usually with a jetted morphology extending between 15 and 50 kpc. No extended emission is detected around the other FR 0s, with a typical luminosity limit of ≲5 × 10²² W Hz^-1 over an area of 100 kpc × 100 kpc. The spectral slopes of FR 0s between 150 MHz and 1.4 GHz span a broad range (-0.7 ≲ α ≲ 0.8) with a median value of ᾱ ∼ 0.1; 20% of them have a steep spectrum (α ≳ 0.5), which is an indication of the presence of substantial extended emission confined within the spatial resolution limit. The fraction of FR 0s showing evidence for the presence of jets, by including both spectral and morphological information, is at least ∼40%. This study confirms that FR 0s and FR Is can be interpreted as two extremes of a continuous population of jetted sources, with the FR 0s representing the low end in size and radio power.