Statistics of the MASIV 5 GHZ VLA Scintillation Survey

Abstract : We are undertaking a large-scale VLA 5 GHz variability survey of the northern sky searching for rapid intra-day variability. From four epochs of observations spread over a year we find 56% of the flat-spectrum sources showed significant variability on time-scales from hours to days, with many sources varying episodically on only one epoch during the year. We find that the weaker sources show more frequent variability as well as fractionally larger amplitude variability. Fewer sources were detected at high Galactic latitude, demonstrating that inter-stellar scintillation is the principal mechanism responsible for this IDV. We also see a significant dependence on spectral index with the flatter and more inverted sources more frequently exhibiting scintillation.