Planck intermediate results VII. Statistical properties of infrared and radio extragalactic sources from the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue at frequencies between 100 and 857 GHz

Abstract

We make use of the Planck all-sky survey to derive number counts and spectral indices of extragalactic sources - infrared and radio sources - from the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC) at 100 to 857 GHz (3mm to 350 mu m). Three zones (deep, medium and shallow) of approximately homogeneous coverage are used to permit a clean and controlled correction for incompleteness, which was explicitly not done for the ERCSC, as it was aimed at providing lists of sources to be followed up. Our sample, prior to the 80% completeness cut, contains between 217 sources at 100 GHz and 1058 sources at 857 GHz over about 12 800 to 16 550 deg(2) (31 to 40% of the sky). After the 80% completeness cut, between 122 and 452 and sources remain, with flux densities above 0.3 and 1.9 Jy at 100 and 857 GHz. The sample so defined can be used for statistical analysis. Using the multi-frequency coverage of the Planck High Frequency Instrument, all the sources have been classified as either dust-dominated (infrared galaxies) or synchrotron-dominated (radio galaxies) on the basis of their spectral energy distributions (SED). Our sample is thus complete, flux-limited and color-selected to differentiate between the two populations. We find an approximately equal number of synchrotron and dusty sources between 217 and 353 GHz; at 353 GHz or higher (or 217 GHz and lower) frequencies, the number is dominated by dusty (synchrotron) sources, as expected. For most of the sources, the spectral indices are also derived. We provide for the first time counts of bright sources from 353 to 857 GHz and the contributions from dusty and synchrotron sources at all HFI frequencies in the key spectral range where these spectra are crossing. The observed counts are in the Euclidean regime. The number counts are compared to previously published data (from earlier Planck results, Herschel, BLAST, SCUBA, LABOCA, SPT, and ACT) and models taking into account both radio or infrared galaxies, and covering a large range of flux densities. We derive the multi-frequency Euclidean level - the plateau in the normalised differential counts at high flux-density - and compare it to WMAP, Spitzer and IRAS results. The submillimetre number counts are not well reproduced by current evolution models of dusty galaxies, whereas the millimetre part appears reasonably well fitted by the most recent model for synchrotron-dominated sources. Finally we provide estimates of the local luminosity density of dusty galaxies, providing the first such measurements at 545 and 857 GHz.