THE COSMIC INFRARED BACKGROUND EXPERIMENT (CIBER): THE WIDE-FIELD IMAGERS

Journal Article · Thu Aug 15 04:00:00 EDT 2013 · Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/207/2/32· OSTI ID:22136587

Bock, J.; Battle, J. ^[1]; Sullivan, I. ^[2]; Arai, T.; Matsumoto, T.; Matsuura, S.; Tsumura, K. ^[3]; Cooray, A.; Mitchell-Wynne, K.; Smidt, J. ^[4]; Hristov, V.; Lam, A. C.; Levenson, L. R.; Mason, P. ^[5]; Keating, B.; Renbarger, T. ^[6]; Kim, M. G. ^[7]; Lee, D. H. ^[8]; Nam, U. W. ^[9]; Suzuki, K. ^[10] ; others, and

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1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (United States)
3. Department of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210 (Japan)
4. Center for Cosmology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States)
5. Department of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
6. Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093 (United States)
7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742 (Korea, Republic of)
8. Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan (China)
9. Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), Daejeon 305-348 (Korea, Republic of)
10. Instrument Development Group of Technical Center, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8602 (Japan)

We have developed and characterized an imaging instrument to measure the spatial properties of the diffuse near-infrared extragalactic background light (EBL) in a search for fluctuations from z > 6 galaxies during the epoch of reionization. The instrument is part of the Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER), designed to observe the EBL above Earth's atmosphere during a suborbital sounding rocket flight. The imaging instrument incorporates a 2 Degree-Sign Multiplication-Sign 2 Degree-Sign field of view to measure fluctuations over the predicted peak of the spatial power spectrum at 10 arcmin, and 7'' Multiplication-Sign 7'' pixels, to remove lower redshift galaxies to a depth sufficient to reduce the low-redshift galaxy clustering foreground below instrumental sensitivity. The imaging instrument employs two cameras with {Delta}{lambda}/{lambda} {approx} 0.5 bandpasses centered at 1.1 {mu}m and 1.6 {mu}m to spectrally discriminate reionization extragalactic background fluctuations from local foreground fluctuations. CIBER operates at wavelengths where the electromagnetic spectrum of the reionization extragalactic background is thought to peak, and complements fluctuation measurements by AKARI and Spitzer at longer wavelengths. We have characterized the instrument in the laboratory, including measurements of the sensitivity, flat-field response, stray light performance, and noise properties. Several modifications were made to the instrument following a first flight in 2009 February. The instrument performed to specifications in three subsequent flights, and the scientific data are now being analyzed.

• OSTI ID: 22136587
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal, Supplement Series Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 207; ISSN 0067-0049; ISSN APJSA2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
CAMERAS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
FLUCTUATIONS
GALAXIES
IMAGES
INFRARED RADIATION
RED SHIFT
RELICT RADIATION
ROCKETS
SENSITIVITY
SPACE VEHICLES
SPECTRA
SPITZER THEORY
VISIBLE RADIATION
WAVELENGTHS