The Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) has been used in support of the VLBI Space Observatory Programme (VSOP) space VLBI mission, to monitor the total and polarised flux densities of 202 objects that make up 83% of the VSOP all-sky Survey of compact extragalactic radio sources south of δ = + 10°. The primary goal of the ATCA observations is to provide information on the total and polarised emission from the compact components in these sources, for correlation with parameters obtained from VSOP imaging observations. These data represent the first high resolution, long timescale flux density monitoring observations of a large number of southern compact radio sources. In the future, comparison of the ATCA and VSOP data will be used to investigate relativistic beaming models and identify similarities or differences between the major classes of extragalactic radio sources. As an illustration of the scientific value of the ATCA data we undertake a comparison of the properties of the gamma-ray loud and gamma-ray quiet AGN in the southern component of the VSOP Survey sample, finding that in a flat-spectrum sub-sample the gamma-ray loud AGN are more variable than the gamma-ray quiet AGN.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Physical Sciences
Research Group:	Astronomical and Space Sciences
Research Field:	Galactic Astronomy
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding Knowledge in the Physical Sciences
UTAS Author:	Lovell, JEJ (Dr Jim Lovell)
ID Code:	46708
Year Published:	2003
Web of Science® Times Cited:	57
Deposited By:	Physics
Deposited On:	2007-08-29
Last Modified:	2007-08-29
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