VLA imaging of the XMM-LSS / VIDEO deep field at 1-2 GHz
  Modern radio telescopes are routinely reaching depths where normal
starforming galaxies are the dominant observed population. Realising the
potential of radio as a tracer of star formation and black hole activity over
cosmic time involves achieving such depths over representative volumes, with
radio forming part of a larger multiwavelength campaign. In pursuit of this we
used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to image $\sim$5 deg$^{2}$ of
the VIDEO/XMM-LSS extragalactic deep field at 1--2 GHz. We achieve a median
depth of 16 $\mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ with an angular resolution of 4.5\arcsec.
Comparisons with existing radio observations of XMM-LSS showcase the improved
survey speed of the upgraded VLA: we cover 2.5 times the area and increase the
depth by $\sim$20\% in 40\% of the time. Direction-dependent calibration and
wide-field imaging were required to suppress the error patterns from off-axis
sources of even modest brightness. We derive a catalogue containing 5,762
sources from the final mosaic. Sub-band imaging provides in-band spectral
indices for 3,458 (60\%) sources, with the average spectrum becoming flatter
than the canonical synchrotron slope below 1 mJy. Positional and flux-density
accuracy of the observations, and the differential source counts are in
excellent agreement with those of existing measurements. A public release of
the images and catalogue accompanies this article.
