A population study of faint compact steep spectrum radio sources:: Self-similar growth

The main topic of this contribution is the investigation of the morphological self-similarity of the growth process during the gigahertz peaked spectrum (GPS) and compact steep spectrum (CSS) phase of evolving radio galaxies. By investigating a new sample of faint CSS radio sources we establish that self-similar evolution must hold for peaked spectrum sources over a wide range of luminosities as well as physical sizes. Thus, we argue that self-similarity should be regarded as an essential, intrinsic characteristic of the growth process of young radio sources, and be treated as such, and not merely as a supplementary constraint for evolution models.