MERLIN and VLA observations of compact steep-spectrum radio sources

Abstract

We present maps made with MERLIN and the VLA of compact steep-spectrum radio sources at wavelengths of 18, 6 and 2 em with subarcsecond resolution. The sources were selected from the 3C and Peacock & Wall surveys. Study of the angular structures found shows that the high-frequency survey of Peacock & Wall preferentially selects sources with angular sizes of < 0.1 arcsec, even though their high-frequency spectra are still steep. The resolved quasars in this study have predominantly complex or distorted structures, whereas the galaxies tend to have simpler ‘double’ type structures.