(Abridged)One of the fundamental challenges for astrophysics in the 21st
century is finding a way to untangle the physical processes that govern galaxy
formation and evolution. Given the importance and scope of this problem, the
multi-wavelength astronomical community has used the past decade to build up a
wealth of information over specific extragalactic deep fields to address key
questions in galaxy formation and evolution. These fields generally cover at
least 10square degrees to facilitate the investigation of the rarest, typically
most massive, galaxies and AGN. Furthermore, such areal coverage allows the
environments to be fully accounted for, thereby linking the single halo to the
two-halo terms in the halo occupation distribution. Surveys at radio
wavelengths have begun to lag behind those at other wavelengths, especially in
this medium-deep survey tier. However, the survey speed offered by the JVLA
means that we can now reach a point where we can begin to obtain commensurate
data at radio wavelengths to those which already exists from the X-ray through
to the far-infrared over ~10 square degrees.
We therefore present the case for a 10 square degree survey to 1.5uJy at
L-band in A or B Array, requiring ~4000 hours to provide census of
star-formation and AGN-accretion activity in the Universe. For example, the
observations will allow galaxies forming stars at 10Msolar/yr to be detected
out to z~1 and luminous infrared galaxies (1000Msolar/yr to be found out to
z~6. Furthermore, the survey area ensures that we will have enough cosmic
volume to find these rare sources at all epochs. The bandwidth will allow us to
determine the polarisation properties galaxies in the high-redshift Universe as
a function of stellar mass, morphology and redshift.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures. White Paper submitted to the call for Very Large
Array Sky Survey
