Serendipity observations of far infrared cirrus emission in the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey: Analysis of far-infrared correlations

Abstract

We present an analysis of far-infrared dust emission from diffuse cirrus clouds. This study is based on serendipitous observations at 160 microns at high galactic latitude with the Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) onboard the Spitzer Space Telescope by the Spitzer Infrared Nearby Galaxies Survey (SINGS). These observations are complemented with IRIS data at 100 and 60 microns and constitute one of the most sensitive and unbiased samples of far infrared observations at small scale of diffuse interstellar clouds. Outside regions dominated by the cosmic infrared background fluctuations, we observe a substantial scatter in the 160/100 colors from cirrus emission. We compared the 160/100 color variations to 60/100 colors in the same fields and find a trend of decreasing 60/100 with increasing 160/100. This trend can not be accounted for by current dust models by changing solely the interstellar radiation field. It requires a significant change of dust properties such as grain size distribution or emissivity or a mixing of clouds in different physical conditions along the line of sight. These variations are important as a potential confusing foreground for extragalactic studies.

25 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (11)

• The Leiden/Argentine/Bonn (LAB) Survey of Galactic HI: Final data release of the combined LDS and IAR surveys with improved stray-radiation corrections
• The Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) for the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Infrared Emission from Interstellar Dust. IV. The Silicate-Graphite-PAH Model in the Post-Spitzer Era
• IRIS: A new generation of IRAS maps
• A FUSE Survey of Interstellar Molecular Hydrogen toward High-Latitude AGN
• Absolute Calibration and Characterization of the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer. III. An Asteroid-based Calibration of MIPS at 160 microns
• Correlated Anisotropies in the Cosmic Far-Infrared Background Detected by MIPS/Spitzer: Constraint on the Bias
• Statistical properties of dust far-infrared emission
• Large-scale variations of the dust optical properties in the Galaxy
• First detection of dust emission in a High-Velocity Cloud
• Constraints on the nature of dust particles by infrared observations

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Planck intermediate results. XVII. Emission of dust in the diffuse interstellar medium from the far-infrared to microwave frequencies
• Planck intermediate results. XXIX. All-sky dust modelling with Planck, IRAS, and WISE observations
• Dust variations in the diffuse interstellar medium: constraints on Milky Way dust from Planck-HFI observations
• The Structure of a Low-Metallicity Giant Molecular Cloud Complex
• Properties of Galactic cirrus clouds observed by BOOMERanG
• Dust models post-Planck: constraining the far-infrared opacity of dust in the diffuse interstellar medium
• On the Origins of the High-Latitude H-alpha Background
• Diffuse far-infrared and ultraviolet emission in the NGC4435/4438 system: tidal stream or Galactic cirrus?
• An accurate measurement of the anisotropies and mean level of the Cosmic Infrared Background at 100 and 160 um
• Herschel-ATLAS: Statistical Properties of Galactic Cirrus in the GAMA-9 Hour Science Demonstration Phase Field
• On the origin of M81 group extended dust emission
• A Multi-wavelength analysis of M81: insight on the nature of Arp's loop
• Large Interstellar Polarisation Survey II. UV/optical study of cloud-to-cloud variations of dust in the diffuse ISM
• A Search for Dust Emission in the Leo Intergalactic Cloud
• A New Galactic Extinction Map of the Cygnus Region
• The unusual ISM in Blue and Dusty Gas Rich Galaxies (BADGRS)
• Far-infrared to centimeter emission of very nearby galaxies with archival data