An Empirical Determination of the Intergalactic Background Light Using NIR Deep Galaxy Survey Data out to 5 microns and the Gamma-ray Opacity of the Universe

Abstract

We extend our previous model-independent determination of the intergalactic background light (IBL), based purely on galaxy survey data, out to a wavelength of 5 microns. Our approach enables us to constrain the range of photon densities, based on the uncertainties from observationally determined luminosity densities and colors. We further determine a 68% confidence upper and lower limit on the opacity of the universe to gamma-rays up to energies of 1.6/(1+z) TeV. A comparison of our lower limit redshift-dependent opacity curves to the opacity limits derived from the results of both ground-based air Cherenkov telescope and Fermi-LAT observations of PKS 1424+240 allows us to place a new upper limit on the redshift of this source, independent of IBL modeling.

version accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 23 pages, 4 figures

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• The Imprint of The Extragalactic Background Light in the Gamma-Ray Spectra of Blazars
• Near-Infrared and Optical Luminosity Functions from the 6dF Galaxy Survey
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