Abstract We present a catalogue of Hi sources extracted from the MIGHTEE survey data cubes covering the COSMOS field. The catalogue contains 293 sources in the redshift range of 0.004 z 0.093. In addition to Hi 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 Hi catalogue acquired through untargeted source finding is greatly influenced by the source finding methods used. This study therefore also provides a well-characterised 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 Hi source detection rather than source characterisation 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.
Maksymowicz-Maciata et al. (Thu,) studied this question.