MIGHTEE–HI: H i catalogue of 293 sources for the COSMOS field and comparative study of 3-dimensional source finding methods

Journal article

We present a catalogue of H i sources extracted from the MIGHTEE survey data cubes covering the COSMOS field. The catalogue contains 293 sources in the redshift range of . In addition to H i masses and velocity widths, the catalogue includes optical through near-infrared photometry and inferred stellar masses and star-formation rates. The quantity of sources in the H i catalogue acquired through untargeted source finding is greatly influenced by the source finding methods used. This study therefore also provides a well-characterized expected completeness of the detected sample of galaxies based on their properties, informing of any detection biases, inferred through a comparative study of different source finding algorithms. We have tested the performance of widely-used source finders: pybdsf, profound, and sofia, along with new source finder leshi, focusing exclusively on H i source detection rather than source characterization in the first instance. The source finders were tested by injecting a sample of simulated galaxies divided into narrow bins of mass, inclination and distance into a MeerKAT data cube. The results inform the source finding strategies for the MeerKAT International GigaHertz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration (MIGHTEE) survey, as well as upcoming SKAO surveys.

Authors: Maksymowicz-Maciata, M; Maddox, N; Hale, C; Maughan, B; Jarvis, MJ

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Volume: 550
• Issue: 1
• Pages: stag1091
• Article number: stag1091
• Publication date: 2026-06-12
• Acceptance date: 2026-06-04
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stag1091
• EISSN: 1365-2966
• ISSN: 0035-8711
• Language: English
• Keywords: radio lines: galaxies; methods: observational; software: data analysis; catalogues; galaxies: abundances