New Spectral Evidence of an Unaccounted Component of the Near-infrared Extragalactic Background Light from the CIBER

Journal Article · Mon Apr 10 04:00:00 EDT 2017 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/AA6843· OSTI ID:22872818

Matsuura, Shuji ^[1]; Arai, Toshiaki; Matsumoto, Toshio; Onishi, Yosuke; Shirahata, Mai; Wada, Takehiko ^[2]; Bock, James J.; Cooray, Asantha; Korngut, Phillip M.; Levenson, Louis R. ^[3]; Kim, Min Gyu; Lee, Hyung Mok ^[4]; Lee, Dae Hee ^[5]; Tsumura, Kohji ^[6]; Zemcov, Michael ^[7]

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1. School of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Hyogo 669-1337 (Japan)
2. Department of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210 (Japan)
3. Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, CA 91125 (United States)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742 (Korea, Republic of)
5. Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon 305-348 (Korea, Republic of)
6. Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8578 (Japan)
7. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, CA 91109 (United States)

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 42.7{sub −10.6}{sup +11.9} nW m{sup −2} sr{sup −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 28.7{sub −3.3}{sup +5.1} nWm{sup −2} sr{sup −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.

• OSTI ID: 22872818
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 839; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
BRIGHTNESS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COSMIC DUST
COSMOLOGY
EMISSION
GALAXIES
INTERGALACTIC SPACE
NEAR INFRARED RADIATION
PHOTOMETRY
SPECTRA
STARS
ZODIACAL LIGHT