An unbiased sample of bright southern compact steep spectrum and gigahertz peaked spectrum sources

Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) and Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) sources are classes of compact, powerful, extragalactic objects. These sources are thought to be the earliest stages in the evolution of radio galaxies, capturing the ignition (or, in some cases, re-ignition) of the active galactic nucleus. As well as serving as probes of the early stages of large-scale radio sources, these sources are good, stable, amplitude calibrators for radio telescopes. We present an unbiased flux density limited (>1.5Jy at 2.7GHz) catalogue of these objects in the Southern hemisphere, including tabulated data, radio spectra, and where available, optical images and measurements. The catalogue contains 26 sources, consisting of two new candidates and 15 known CSS sources, and nine known GPS sources. We present new Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) data on 10 of these 26 sources, and data on a further 42 sources which were excluded from our final sample. This bright sample will serve as a reference sample for comparison with subsequent faint (mJy level) samples of CSS and GPS candidates currently being compiled.