There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
We present an 850-micron map and list of candidate sources in a 70 arcmin^2 sub-area
of the Groth Strip observed using SCUBA. We initially detect 7 candidate sources with
signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) between 3.0 and 3.5 and 4 candidate sources with SNR
> 3.5. Simulations suggest that on average in a map this size one expects 1.6 false
positive sources for SNR > 3.5 and 4.5 for 3 < SNR < 3.5. Flux boosting in maps is
a well known effect and we have developed a simple Bayesian prescription for estimating
the unboosted flux distribution and used this method to determine the best flux estimates
of our sources. This method is easily adapted for any other modest signal-to-noise
survey in which there is prior knowledge of the source counts. We performed follow-up
photometry in an attempt to confirm or reject 5 of our source candidates. We confirm
the reality of 2 of the SCUBA sources, although at lower levels than suggested in
the map and we find that the photometry results are consistent with and confirm the
de-boosted map fluxes. Our final candidate source list contains 3 sources, including
the 2 confirmed detections and 1 further candidate source with SNR > 3.5 which has
a reasonable chance of being real.