A MeerKAT S-band view on the DEEP2 field
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The integration of S-band receivers into MeerKAT significantly enhances the telescope’s spectral coverage and angular resolution, allowing for the detailed study of morphologically interesting AGN and star-forming galaxies. In addition, it enables deeper observations for population studies of such sources, given the significantly lower confusion limit. We present the first continuum imaging results with the MeerKAT S-band, observations of the DEEP2 field in the S1 (1.96 -- 2.84 GHz) and S4 (2.62 -- 3.50 GHz) sub-bands using a total of 55 antennas. With an on-source integration time of just 65 min, the S1 (S4) image has an angular resolution of 7.1$^{\prime\prime}$ $\times$ 3.2$^{\prime\prime}$ (5.0$^{\prime\prime}$ $\times$ 2.2$^{\prime\prime}$) and a sensitivity of 8.7 (7.8) µJy/beam. We present the Euclidean-normalised source counts for this field, as well as an in-depth morphological comparison of resolved sources in both the L-band (Mauch+2020) and S-band images. These observations provide an important demonstration of the capabilities of the MeerKAT S-band with relatively short integration times, in comparison with existing S-band surveys, and speak to the rich scientific potential of future MeerKAT and MeerKAT+ full-Stokes S-band surveys.