Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2010-08-25
Astrophys.J.723:40-46,2010
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Accepted to ApJ
Scientific paper
10.1088/0004-637X/723/1/40
We present a current best estimate of the integrated near-infrared (NIR) extragalactic background light (EBL) attributable to resolved galaxies in J, H, and Ks. Our results in units of nW m-2 sr-1 are 11.7+5.6 -2.6 in J, 11.5+4.5 -1.5 in H and 10.0+2.8 -0.8 in Ks. We derive these new limits by combining our deep wide-field NIR photometry from five widely separated fields with other studies from the literature to create a galaxy counts sample that is highly complete and has good counting statistics out to JHKs ~ 27-28. As part of this effort we present new ultradeep Ks-band galaxy counts from 22 hours of observations with the Multi Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS) instrument on the Subaru Telescope. We use this MOIRCS Ks-band mosaic to estimate the total missing flux from sources beyond our detection limits. Our new limits to the NIR EBL are in basic agreement with, but 10 - 20% higher than previous estimates, bringing them into better agreement with estimates of the total NIR EBL (resolved + unresolved sources) obtained from TeV gamma-ray opacity measurements and recent direct measurements of the total NIR EBL. We examine field to field variations in our photometry to show that the integrated light from galaxies is isotropic to within uncertainties, consistent with the expected large-scale isotropy of the EBL. Our data also allow for a robust estimate of the NIR light from Galactic stars, which we find to be 14.7 +/- 2.4 in J, 10.1 +/- 1.9 in H and 7.6 +/- 1.8 in Ks in units of nW m-2 sr-1.
Barger Amy. J.
Cowie Lennox L.
Keenan Ryan C.
Wang Wei-Hao
No associations
LandOfFree
The Resolved Near-Infrared Extragalactic Background does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The Resolved Near-Infrared Extragalactic Background, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Resolved Near-Infrared Extragalactic Background will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-524968