TY - JOUR
T1 - New Spectral Evidence of an Unaccounted Component of the Near-infrared Extragalactic Background Light from the CIBER
AU - Matsuura, Shuji
AU - Arai, Toshiaki
AU - Bock, James J.
AU - Cooray, Asantha
AU - Korngut, Phillip M.
AU - Kim, Min Gyu
AU - Lee, Hyung Mok
AU - Lee, Dae Hee
AU - Levenson, Louis R.
AU - Matsumoto, Toshio
AU - Onishi, Yosuke
AU - Shirahata, Mai
AU - Tsumura, Kohji
AU - Wada, Takehiko
AU - Zemcov, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication makes use of data products from the 2 MASS, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..
PY - 2017/4/10
Y1 - 2017/4/10
N2 - The extragalactic background light (EBL) captures the total integrated emission from stars and galaxies throughout the cosmic history. The amplitude of the near-infrared EBL from space absolute photometry observations has been controversial and depends strongly on the modeling and subtraction of the zodiacal light (ZL) foreground. We report the first measurement of the diffuse background spectrum at 0.8-1.7 μm from the CIBER experiment. The observations were obtained with an absolute spectrometer over two flights in multiple sky fields to enable the subtraction of ZL, stars, terrestrial emission, and diffuse Galactic light. After subtracting foregrounds and accounting for systematic errors, we find the nominal EBL brightness, assuming the Kelsall ZL model, is nW m-2 sr-1 at 1.4 μm. We also analyzed the data using the Wright ZL model, which results in a worse statistical fit to the data and an unphysical EBL, falling below the known background light from galaxies at λ < 1.3 μm. Using a model-independent analysis based on the minimum EBL brightness, we find an EBL brightness of nWm-2 sr-1 at 1.4 μm. While the derived EBL amplitude strongly depends on the ZL model, we find that we cannot fit the spectral data to ZL, Galactic emission, and EBL from solely integrated galactic light from galaxy counts. The results require a new diffuse component, such as an additional foreground or an excess EBL with a redder spectrum than that of ZL.
AB - The extragalactic background light (EBL) captures the total integrated emission from stars and galaxies throughout the cosmic history. The amplitude of the near-infrared EBL from space absolute photometry observations has been controversial and depends strongly on the modeling and subtraction of the zodiacal light (ZL) foreground. We report the first measurement of the diffuse background spectrum at 0.8-1.7 μm from the CIBER experiment. The observations were obtained with an absolute spectrometer over two flights in multiple sky fields to enable the subtraction of ZL, stars, terrestrial emission, and diffuse Galactic light. After subtracting foregrounds and accounting for systematic errors, we find the nominal EBL brightness, assuming the Kelsall ZL model, is nW m-2 sr-1 at 1.4 μm. We also analyzed the data using the Wright ZL model, which results in a worse statistical fit to the data and an unphysical EBL, falling below the known background light from galaxies at λ < 1.3 μm. Using a model-independent analysis based on the minimum EBL brightness, we find an EBL brightness of nWm-2 sr-1 at 1.4 μm. While the derived EBL amplitude strongly depends on the ZL model, we find that we cannot fit the spectral data to ZL, Galactic emission, and EBL from solely integrated galactic light from galaxy counts. The results require a new diffuse component, such as an additional foreground or an excess EBL with a redder spectrum than that of ZL.
KW - cosmology: observations
KW - dark ages, reionization, first stars
KW - diffuse radiation
KW - infrared: diffuse background
KW - infrared: general
KW - zodiacal dust
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/aa6843
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/aa6843
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85018525023
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 839
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 7
ER -