Tuesday, January 24, 2012

1201.4398 (Kari Helgason et al.)

Reconstructing the Near-IR Background Fluctuations from known Galaxy Populations using Multiband Measurements of Luminosity Functions    [PDF]

Kari Helgason, Massimo Ricotti, Alexander Kashlinsky
We model fluctuations in the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) arising from known galaxy populations using 230 measured UV, optical and NIR luminosity functions (LF) from a variety of surveys spanning a wide range of redshifts. We compare best-fit Schechter parameters across the literature and find clear indication of evolution with redshift. Providing fitting formulae for the multi-band evolution of the LFs, we calculate the total emission redshifted into the near-IR bands in the observer frame and recover the galaxy number counts in the 0.45-4.5 micron range. Our empirical approach, in conjunction with a halo model describing the clustering of galaxies, allows us to compute the fluctuations of the unresolved CIB and compare the models to current measurements. We find that fluctuations from known galaxy populations are unable to account for more than 20% of the CIB clustering signal seen by Spitzer/IRAC and AKARI/IRC at angular scales out to at least 5 arcmin. This holds true even if the LFs are extrapolated with the steepest faint-end slope allowed by data out to faint magnitudes. A rapid increase in the number of low-redshift dwarf galaxies just beyond the detection thresholds of current surveys would violate the shot noise levels seen in the data. We also show that removing resolved sources to progressively fainter magnitude limits, isolates CIB fluctuations arising from higher redshifts. Our empirical approach suggests that known galaxy populations are not responsible for the bulk of the fluctuation signal seen in the measurements.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.4398

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