A New Era in Extragalactic Background Light Measurements: The Cosmic History of Accretion, Nucleosynthesis and Reionization
📝 Abstract
(Brief Summary) What is the total radiative content of the Universe since the epoch of recombination? The extragalactic background light (EBL) spectrum captures the redshifted energy released from the first stellar objects, protogalaxies, and galaxies throughout cosmic history. Yet, we have not determined the brightness of the extragalactic sky from UV/optical to far-infrared wavelengths with sufficient accuracy to establish the radiative content of the Universe to better than an order of magnitude. Among many science topics, an accurate measurement of the EBL spectrum from optical to far-IR wavelengths, will address: What is the total energy released by stellar nucleosynthesis over cosmic history? Was significant energy released by non-stellar processes? Is there a diffuse component to the EBL anywhere from optical to sub-millimeter? When did first stars appear and how luminous was the reionization epoch? Absolute optical to mid-IR EBL spectrum to an astrophysically interesting accuracy can be established by wide field imagingat a distance of 5 AU or above the ecliptic plane where the zodiacal foreground is reduced by more than two orders of magnitude.
💡 Analysis
(Brief Summary) What is the total radiative content of the Universe since the epoch of recombination? The extragalactic background light (EBL) spectrum captures the redshifted energy released from the first stellar objects, protogalaxies, and galaxies throughout cosmic history. Yet, we have not determined the brightness of the extragalactic sky from UV/optical to far-infrared wavelengths with sufficient accuracy to establish the radiative content of the Universe to better than an order of magnitude. Among many science topics, an accurate measurement of the EBL spectrum from optical to far-IR wavelengths, will address: What is the total energy released by stellar nucleosynthesis over cosmic history? Was significant energy released by non-stellar processes? Is there a diffuse component to the EBL anywhere from optical to sub-millimeter? When did first stars appear and how luminous was the reionization epoch? Absolute optical to mid-IR EBL spectrum to an astrophysically interesting accuracy can be established by wide field imagingat a distance of 5 AU or above the ecliptic plane where the zodiacal foreground is reduced by more than two orders of magnitude.
📄 Content
arXiv:0902.2372v1 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Feb 2009 A New Era in Extragalactic Background Light Measurements: The Cosmic History of Accretion, Nucleosynthesis and Reionization Asantha Cooray1,∗Alexandre Amblard1, Charles Beichman2, Dominic Benford3, Rebecca Bernstein4, James J. Bock2,5, Mark Brodwin6, Volker Bromm7, Renyue Cen8, Ranga R. Chary2, Mark Devlin9, Timothy Dolch10, Herv´e Dole11, Eli Dwek3, David Elbaz12, Michael Fall10, Giovanni Fazio13, Henry Ferguson10, Steven Furlanetto14, Jonathan Gardner3, Mauro Giavalisco15, Rudy Gilmore4, Nickolay Gnedin16, Anthony Gonzalez17, Zoltan Haiman18, Michael Hauser9, Jiasheng Huang13, Sergei Ipatov19, Alexander Kashlinsky3, Brian Keating20, Thomas Kelsall3, Eiichiro Komatsu7, Guilaine Lagache11, Louis R. Levenson2, Avi Loeb13, Piero Madau4, John C. Mather3, Toshio Matsumoto21, Shuji Matsuura21, Kalevi Mattila22, Harvey Moseley3, Leonidas Moustakas5, S. Peng Oh23, Larry Petro10, Joel Primack4, William Reach2, Tom Renbarger20, Paul Shapiro7, Daniel Stern5, Ian Sullivan2, Aparna Venkatesan24, Michael Werner5, Rogier Windhorst25, Edward L. Wright14, Michael Zemcov2,5 1 Center for Cosmology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 2 IPAC/Physics/Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 3 NASA/GSFC, Code 665, Greenbelt, MD 20771 4 Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 5 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 6 NOAO, Tucson, AZ 85719 7 Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712 8 Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 9 Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104 10 STScI, 3700 San Martin Dr., Baltimore, MD 21218 11 IAS, Universit´e Paris, Orsay Cedex, France 12 CEA Saclay, Service d’Astrophysique, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France 13 Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 14 UCLA Physics & Astronomy, Los Angeles, CA 90095 15 Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 16 Theoretical Astrophysics Group, Fermilab, Batavia, IL 60510 17 Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 18 Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 19 Department of Physics, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064 20 Department of Physics, University of California, La Jolla, CA 92093 21 ISAS, JAXA, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan 22 Observatory, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 23 Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 24 Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94117 25 Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ 85287 ∗E-mail: acooray@uci.edu; Tel: 949-701-6393 Executive Summary What is the total radiative content of the Universe since the epoch of re- combination? The extragalactic background light (EBL) spectrum captures the redshifted energy released from the first stellar objects, protogalaxies, and galaxies throughout cos- mic history. It is a key constraint on all models of galaxy formation and evolution, and provides an anchor that connects global radiation energy density to star formation, metal production, and gas consumption. Yet, we have not determined the brightness of the extra- galactic sky from UV/optical to far-infrared wavelengths with sufficient accuracy to establish the radiative content of the Universe to better than an order of magnitude. It was due to the first-generation of EBL measurements that we now know that the far-infrared back- ground associated with dust in high redshift galaxies is energetically as important as the optical/near-IR background. This was an unexpected discovery. As a function of wavelength, a cosmic consistency test can be performed by comparing the integrated light from all galaxies resolved by both ground and space-based observatories to the EBL intensity. Any discrepancies suggest the presence of new, diffuse sources unresolved by telescopes. The possibilities for new discoveries with profound implications for astron- omy range from recombination signatures during reionization, unexpected sources such as primordial black holes, photons from decay of elementary particles, to a new component of the interstellar medium of the Milky Way. Among many science topics, an accurate measurement of the EBL spectrum from optical to far-IR wavelengths, will address the following questions: • What is the total energy released by stellar nucleosynthesis over cosmic history? • Was significant energy released by non-stellar processes? • Is there a diffuse component to the EBL anywhere from optical to sub-millimeter? • When did first stars appear and how luminous was the reionization epoch? Zodiacal dust in the Solar System is the main foreground that limits EBL measure- ments at optical/near-IR wavelengths, while interstellar dust limits measurements at sub- mm wavelengths. New
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