The Resolved NIR Extragalactic Background

Abstract

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 for measurements of νIν 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 J H Ks ~ 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 lim- its 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 γ-ray opacity measurements and recent direct measurements of the total NIR EBL, as well as recent model estimates for the total light from galaxies. We exam- ine 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.

Citation error corrected, Conference Proceedings from Cosmic Radiation Fields 2010, DESY, Hamburg, Germany

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• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
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• Constraints on the Cosmic Near Infrared Background Excess from NICMOS Deep Field Observations
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• A GeV-TeV Measurement of the Extragalactic Background Light
• Modelling the cosmic spectral energy distribution and extragalactic background light over all time
• Reconstructing emission from pre-reionization sources with cosmic infrared background fluctuation measurements by the JWST
• Probing the EBL evolution at high redshift using GRBs detected with the Fermi-LAT
• Effects of Spatial Fluctuations in the Extra Galactic Background Light on Hard Gamma Ray Spectra