High-frequency radio observations of the Kuehr sample and the   epoch-dependent luminosity function of the flat-spectrum quasars
  We discuss our ATCA 18.5 and 22 GHz flux density measurements of the Southern extragalactic sources in the complete 5-GHz sample of Kuehr et al. (1981). The high-frequency (5-18.5 GHz) spectral indices of steep-spectrum sources for which we have 18.5-GHz data (66% of the complete sample) are systematically steeper than the low-frequency (2.7-5 GHz) ones, and there is evidence of an anti-correlation of high-frequency spectral index with luminosity. The completeness of the 18.5-GHz data is much higher (89%) for flat-spectrum sources (mostly quasars), which also exhibit a spectral steepening. Taking advantage of the almost complete redshift information on flat-spectrum quasars, we have estimated their 5-GHz luminosity function in several redshift bins. The results confirm that their radio luminosity density peaks at z_peak \simeq 2.5 but do not provide evidence for deviations from pure luminosity evolution as hinted at by other data sets. A comparison of our 22-GHz flux density with WMAP K-band data for flat-spectrum sources suggests that WMAP flux densities may be low by a median factor of \simeq 1.2. The extrapolations of 5-GHz counts and luminosity functions of flat-spectrum radio quasars using the observed distribution of the 5-18.5 GHz spectral indices match those derived directly from WMAP data, indicating that the high-frequency WMAP survey does not detect any large population of FSRQs with anomalous spectra. 
R. Ricci (1,2), I. Prandoni (3), G. Gruppioni (4), R.J. Sault (2), G.   De Zotti (5,1) ((1) Sissa/Isas, (2) Atnf, (3) Inaf-I...