The Faint Extragalactic Radio Background

Figure: This image shows extragalactic components of the radio background, from large to small. The background image is the
synchrotron cosmic web from a magneto hydrodynamic simulation (Dolag, K.).
The upper left shows the X-ray and radio emission in the Coma cluster (Brown & Rudnick, 2010). And the lower right shows an artistic rendering of an active galactic nuclei radio galaxy. The plot in the lower left shows the approximate brightness of the sky background as a function of frequency.

Abstract:
The radio sky covers a large range of sources, from small single galaxies to large clusters of galaxies and the space between them. These sources consist of some of the most powerful objects in the Universe, as well as diffuse weak emitters; all together these sources make up the Cosmic Radio Background (CRB). Understanding the radio background tells us about how galaxies have evolved over time, the different kinds of galaxy populations, the star formation history of the Universe, and the role of magnetism, as well as details of large-scale structure and clustering.
Advancements in radio telescopes and novel data analysis techniques now allow us to push observational limits to new depths, probing fainter galaxies and farther back in cosmic time.This talk will discuss the use of some of these new data and statistical techniques (such as confusion analysis and cross correlations) for studying point sources and source counts as well as diffuse cluster emission and the synchrotron cosmic web. I will contrast the benefits and challenges to statistical detections for investigating the nature of the faint extragalactic components of the radio sky.