Cosmic Evolution Survey: LOFAR 144 MHz imaging of the COSMOS field

We present the first deep, targeted LOFAR 144 MHz source catalogue of the COSMOS field, together with the first 144 MHz source counts in this field. The data comprise 48 h of observations. Over the 2.6 sq. deg. region adopted for the catalogue analysis, the final Dutch-array image reaches a median rms sensitivity of ~100 uJy/beam at an angular resolution of 15" x 6". The resulting catalogue contains 1984 radio sources; a peak S/N >= 5 selection is adopted for the resolved/unresolved classification and source-count analysis. We characterised the catalogue using Monte Carlo source-injection and recovery simulations, including dedicated simulations of extended sources, to quantify completeness, flux-density redistribution, and morphology-dependent source-recovery effects. The catalogue reaches 90% completeness at 1.48 mJy. The resulting Euclidean-normalised differential source counts are measured down to ~0.4 mJy and show good agreement with LoTSS DR3 144 MHz source counts and with the VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz counts scaled to 144 MHz, with ~5% of catalogue sources having multiple 3 GHz counterparts within a beam-matched search region. Comparison with the VLA-COSMOS 3 GHz catalogue shows good astrometric agreement, with median offsets of Delta_RA = 0.35" (+0.03"/-0.05") and Delta_Dec = -0.83" (+0.02"/-0.03"), approximately 6% of the corresponding synthesised-beam dimensions, and no significant radial dependence across the field. The resulting catalogue provides a low-frequency view of COSMOS and a reference dataset for future deeper LOFAR observations and multiwavelength studies of this extensively characterised extragalactic field.