The Cosmic Infrared Background Radiation, Star Formation Rate, and Metallicity

Abstract

The density of the far infrared / submillimeter (FIR/SMM) diffuse extragalactic radiation field has recently been determined from COBE data. Nearly simultaneously, deep FIR/SMM surveys have detected substantial numbers of optically unidentified sources, which have led to the proposal that galaxies and protogalaxies at red shifts z = 2 to 4 may account for an appreciable fraction of the background. Here, I show that, if the reported radiation levels are generated through nucleosynthesis, most of this energy must have been produced at epochs $z\lesssim 2$. Hubble Deep Field data cited by Madau et al. (1998) indicate that the bulk of the integrated extragalactic background must have been generated even more recently at $z<1$.

15 pages, 1 figure, accepted at Astrophysical Journal Letters

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Cosmic Infrared Background: Measurements and Implications
• A Long-Wavelength View on Galaxy Evolution from Deep Surveys by the Infrared Space Observatory
• Building the cosmic infrared background brick by brick with Herschel/PEP
• A 1.2mm MAMBO/IRAM-30m Survey of Dust Emission from the Highest Redshift PSS Quasars
• On the origin of highest energy gamma-rays from Mkn 501
• Galaxy evolution from deep multi-wavelength Infrared surveys: a prelude to Herschel
• Global Evolution Models and the Extragalactic Background Light