New measurements of cosmic infrared background fluctuations from early epochs

Cosmic infrared background fluctuations may contain measurable contribution from objects inaccessible to current telescopic studies, such as the first stars and other luminous objects in the first Gyr of the Universe's evolution. In an attempt to uncover this contribution we have analyzed the GOODS data obtained with the Spitzer IRAC instrument, which are deeper and cover larger scales than the Spitzer data we have previously analyzed. Here we report these new measurements of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) fluctuations remaining after removing cosmic sources to fainter levels than before. The remaining anisotropies on scales > 0.5 arcmin have a significant clustering component with a low shot-noise contribution. We show that these fluctuations cannot be accounted for by instrumental effects, nor by the Solar system and Galactic foreground emissions and must arise from extragalactic sources.Comment: Ap.J.Letters, in pres

Lyman-tomography of cosmic infrared background fluctuations with Euclid: probing emissions and baryonic acoustic oscillations at z>10

The Euclid space mission, designed to probe evolution of the Dark Energy, will map a large area of the sky at three adjacent near-IR filters, Y, J and H. This coverage will also enable mapping source-subtracted cosmic infrared background (CIB) fluctuations with unprecedented accuracy on sub-degree angular scales. Here we propose methodology, using the Lyman-break tomography applied to the Euclid-based CIB maps, to accurately isolate the history of CIB emissions as a function of redshift from 10 < z < 20, and to identify the baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAOs) at those epochs. To identify the BAO signature, we would assemble individual CIB maps over conservatively large contiguous areas of >~ 400 sq deg. The method can isolate the CIB spatial spectrum by z to sub-percent statistical accuracy. We illustrate this with a specific model of CIB production at high z normalized to reproduce the measured Spitzer-based CIB fluctuation. We show that even if the latter contain only a small component from high-z sources, the amplitude of that component can be accurately isolated with the methodology proposed here and the BAO signatures at z>~ 10 are recovered well from the CIB fluctuation spatial spectrum. Probing the BAO at those redshifts will be an important test of the underlying cosmological paradigm, and would narrow the overall uncertainties on the evolution of cosmological parameters, including the Dark Energy. Similar methodology is applicable to the planned WFIRST mission, where we show that a possible fourth near-IR channel at > 2 micron would be beneficial.Comment: comments welcom

Looking at cosmic near-infrared background radiation anisotropies

The cosmic infrared background (CIB) contains emissions accumulated over the entire history of the Universe, including from objects inaccessible to individual telescopic studies. The near-IR (~1-10 mic) part of the CIB, and its fluctuations, reflects emissions from nucleosynthetic sources and gravitationally accreting black holes (BHs). If known galaxies are removed to sufficient depths the source-subtracted CIB fluctuations at near-IR can reveal sources present in the first-stars-era and possibly new stellar populations at more recent times. This review discusses the recent progress in this newly emerging field which identified, with new data and methodology, significant source-subtracted CIB fluctuations substantially in excess of what can be produced by remaining known galaxies. The CIB fluctuations further appear coherent with unresolved cosmic X-ray background (CXB) indicating a very high fraction of BHs among the new sources producing the CIB fluctuations. These observations have led to intensive theoretical efforts to explain the measurements and their properties. While current experimental configurations have limitations in decisively probing these theories, their potentially remarkable implications will be tested in the upcoming CIB measurements with the ESA's Euclid dark energy mission. We describe the goals and methodologies of LIBRAE (Looking at Infrared Background Radiation with Euclid), a NASA-selected project for CIB science with Euclid, which has the potential for transforming the field into a new area of precision cosmology.Comment: Reviews of Modern Physics, to appea

An Electronic Mach-Zehnder Quantum Eraser

We propose an electronic quantum eraser in which the electrons are injected into a mesoscopic conductor at the quantum Hall regime. The conductor is composed of a two-path interferometer which is an electronic analogue of the optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and a quantum point contact detector capacitively coupled to the interferometer. While the interference of the output current at the interferometer is shown to be suppressed by the which-path information, we show that the which-path information is erased by the zero-frequency cross correlation measurement between the interferometer and the detector output leads. We also investigate a modified setup in which the detector is replaced by a two-path interferometer.We show that the path distinguishability and the visibility of the joint detection can be controlled in a continuous manner, and satisfy a complementarity relation for the entangled electrons.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Demonstrating the negligible contribution of optical ACS/HST galaxies to source-subtracted cosmic infrared background fluctuations in deep IRAC/Spitzer images

We study the possible contribution of optical galaxies detected with the {\it Hubble} ACS instrument to the near-IR cosmic infrared (CIB) fluctuations in deep {\it Spitzer} images. The {\it Spitzer} data used in this analysis are obtained in the course of the GOODS project from which we select four independent $10^\prime\times10^\prime$ regions observed at both 3.6 and 4.5 \um. ACS source catalogs for all of these areas are used to construct maps containing only their emissions in the ACS $B, V, i, z$-bands. We find that deep Spitzer data exhibit CIB fluctuations remaining after removal of foreground galaxies of a very different clustering pattern at both 3.6 and 4.5 \um than the ACS galaxies could contribute. We also find that there are very good correlations between the ACS galaxies and the {\it removed} galaxies in the Spitzer maps, but practically no correlations remain with the residual Spitzer maps used to identify the CIB fluctuations. These contributions become negligible on larger scales used to probe the CIB fluctuations arising from clustering. This means that the ACS galaxies cannot contribute to the large-scale CIB fluctuations found in the residual Spitzer data. The absence of their contributions also means that the CIB fluctuations arise at z\gsim 7.5 as the Lyman break of their sources must be redshifted past the longest ACS band, or the fluctuations have to originate in the more local but extremely low luminosity galaxies.Comment: Ap.J.Letters, in press. Minor revisions to mathc the accepted versio

Calibrating Array Detectors

The development of sensitive large format imaging arrays for the infrared promises to provide revolutionary capabilities for space astronomy. For example, the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) on SIRTF will use four 256 x 256 arrays to provide background limited high spatial resolution images of the sky in the 3 to 8 micron spectral region. In order to reach the performance limits possible with this generation of sensitive detectors, calibration procedures must be developed so that uncertainties in detector calibration will always be dominated by photon statistics from the dark sky as a major system noise source. In the near infrared, where the faint extragalactic sky is observed through the scattered and reemitted zodiacal light from our solar system, calibration is particularly important. Faint sources must be detected on this brighter local foreground. We present a procedure for calibrating imaging systems and analyzing such data. In our approach, by proper choice of observing strategy, information about detector parameters is encoded in the sky measurements. Proper analysis allows us to simultaneously solve for sky brightness and detector parameters, and provides accurate formal error estimates. This approach allows us to extract the calibration from the observations themselves; little or no additional information is necessary to allow full interpretation of the data. Further, this approach allows refinement and verification of detector parameters during the mission, and thus does not depend on a priori knowledge of the system or ground calibration for interpretation of images.Comment: Scheduled for ApJS, June 2000 (16 pages, 3 JPEG figures

A Tentative Detection of the Cosmic Infrared Background at 3.5 microns from COBE/DIRBE Observations

Foreground emission and scattered light from interplanetary dust (IPD) particles and emission from Galactic stellar sources are the greatest obstacles for determining the cosmic infrared background (CIB) from diffuse sky measurements in the ~ 1 to 5 micron range. We use ground-based observational limits on the K-band intensity of the CIB in conjunction with skymaps obtained by the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) on the COBE satellite to reexamine the limits on the CIB at 1.25, 3.5, and 4.9 microns. Adopting a CIB intensity of 7.4 nW m-2 sr-1 at 2.2 microns, and using the 2.2 micron DIRBE skymap from which the emission from IPD cloud has been subtracted, we create a spatial template of the Galactic stellar contribution to the diffuse infrared sky. This template is then used to subtract the contribution of the diffuse Galactic stellar emission from the IPD-emission-subtracted DIRBE skymaps. The DIRBE 100 micron data are used to estimate the small contribution of emission from interstellar dust at 3.5 and 4.9 microns. Our method significantly reduces the errors associated with the subtraction of Galactic starlight, leaving only the IPD emission component as the primary obstacle for the detection of the CIB at these wavelengths. This analysis leads to a tentative detection of the CIB at 3.5 microns. The cosmological implications of these results are discussed in the paper.Comment: 8 pages, AASTeX, 2 embedded EPS figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

New measurements of the cosmic infrared background fluctuations in deep Spitzer/IRAC survey data and their cosmological implications

We extend previous measurements of cosmic infrared background (CIB) fluctuations to ~ 1 deg using new data from the Spitzer Extended Deep Survey. Two fields, with depths of ~12 hr/pixel over 3 epochs, are analyzed at 3.6 and 4.5 mic. Maps of the fields were assembled using a self-calibration method uniquely suitable for probing faint diffuse backgrounds. Resolved sources were removed from the maps to a magnitude limit of AB mag ~ 25, as indicated by the level of the remaining shot noise. The maps were then Fourier-transformed and their power spectra were evaluated. Instrumental noise was estimated from the time-differenced data, and subtracting this isolates the spatial fluctuations of the actual sky. The power spectra of the source-subtracted fields remain identical (within the observational uncertainties) for the three epochs indicating that zodiacal light contributes negligibly to the fluctuations. Comparing to 8 mic power spectra shows that Galactic cirrus cannot account for the fluctuations. The signal appears isotropically distributed on the sky as required for an extragalactic origin. The CIB fluctuations continue to diverge to > 10 times those of known galaxy populations on angular scales out to < 1 deg. The low shot noise levels remaining in the diffuse maps indicate that the large scale fluctuations arise from the spatial clustering of faint sources well below the confusion noise. The spatial spectrum of these fluctuations is in reasonable agreement with an origin in populations clustered according to the standard cosmological model (LCDM) at epochs coinciding with the first stars era.Comment: ApJ, to be publishe