BLAST: RESOLVING THE COSMIC SUBMILLIMETER BACKGROUND

Journal Article · Sun Dec 20 00:00:00 EST 2009 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/707/2/1729· OSTI ID:21392535

Marsden, Gaelen; Chapin, Edward L; Halpern, Mark; Ngo, Henry ^[1]; Ade, Peter A. R.; Griffin, Matthew; Hargrave, Peter C; Mauskopf, Philip; Moncelsi, Lorenzo; Pascale, Enzo ^[2]; Bock, James J ^[3]; Devlin, Mark J; Dicker, Simon R; Klein, Jeff ^[4]; Gundersen, Joshua O ^[5]; Hughes, David H ^[6]; Magnelli, Benjamin ^[7]; Netterfield, Calvin B ^[8]; Olmi, Luca ^[9]; Patanchon, Guillaume ^[10]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 (Canada)
2. School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Cardiff, CF24 3AA (United Kingdom)
3. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 (United States)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (United States)
5. Department of Physics, University of Miami, 1320 Campo Sano Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146 (United States)
6. Instituto Nacional de AstrofIsica Optica y Electronica (INAOE), Aptdo. Postal 51 y 72000 Puebla (Mexico)
7. Laboratoire AIM, CEA/DSM-CNRS-Universite Paris Diderot, IRFU/Service d'Astrophysique, Bat. 709, CEA-Saclay, F-91191 gif-sur-Yvette Cedex (France)
8. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4 (Canada)
9. Physics Department, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, Box 23343, UPR station, Puerto Rico 00931 (United States)
10. Universite Paris Diderot, Laboratoire APC, 10, rue Alice Domon et Leonie Duquet 75205 Paris (France)

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) has made 1 deg{sup 2}, deep, confusion-limited maps at three different bands, centered on the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey South Field. By calculating the covariance of these maps with catalogs of 24 mum sources from the Far-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey, we have determined that the total submillimeter intensities are 8.60 +- 0.59, 4.93 +- 0.34, and 2.27 +- 0.20 nW m{sup -2} sr{sup -1} at 250, 350, and 500 mum, respectively. These numbers are more precise than previous estimates of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) and are consistent with 24 mum-selected galaxies generating the full intensity of the CIB. We find that the fraction of the CIB that originates from sources at z >= 1.2 increases with wavelength, with 60% from high-redshift sources at 500 mum. At all BLAST wavelengths, the relative intensity of high-z sources is higher for 24 mum-faint sources than that for 24 mum-bright sources. Galaxies identified as active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by their Infrared Array Camera colors are 1.6-2.6 times brighter than the average population at 250-500 mum, consistent with what is found for X-ray-selected AGNs. BzK-selected galaxies are found to be moderately brighter than typical 24 mum-selected galaxies in the BLAST bands. These data provide high-precision constraints for models of the evolution of the number density and intensity of star-forming galaxies at high redshift.

• OSTI ID: 21392535
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 707, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/707/2/1729; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ACCURACY
APERTURES
BALLOONS
CAMERAS
CATALOGS
COSMOLOGY
EXPLOSIONS
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
MAPS
RED SHIFT
STARS
TELESCOPES
WAVELENGTHS
X RADIATION
AIRCRAFT
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EVOLUTION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
OPENINGS
RADIATIONS