Nature of meterwave luminous objects and search for electron-cyclotron maser emission

Abstract

Meterwave luminous objects, which are bright at the frequency 74 MHz but very faint at 1.4 GHz in VLA surveys (VLSS and NVSS), have special characteristics: very steep spectra and a distinctive distribution in the sky. They are possibly radio relics, ultra-steep spectrum radio galaxies, and Galactic objects such as pulsars, cool dwarfs, and extrasolar planets. We present a preliminary result of our attempt to identify them with possible astronomical objects. We observed several candidates for electron-cyclotron maser emission from cool dwarfs with GMRT at 235 MHz, and located the radio source VLSS 0406.1+0251 to be within 0.5'' near the M3 dwarf LSPM 0406+0251.