Populations behind the source-subtracted cosmic infrared background anisotropies

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https://baas.aas.org/pub/2020n3i037/release/1

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UMBC Center for Space Sciences and Technology (CSST) / Center for Research and Exploration in Space Sciences & Technology II (CRSST II)
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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8403-8548

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2019-05-31

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journal articles
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Kashlinsky, A., Arendt, R. G., Ashby, M., Atrio-Barandela, F., Bromm, V., Cappelluti, N., … Yue, B. (2019). Populations behind the source-subtracted cosmic infrared background anisotropies. Bulletin of the AAS, 51(3). Retrieved from https://baas.aas.org/pub/2020n3i037

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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Abstract

Although the advent of ever-larger and more sensitive telescopes in the coming decade will reveal correspondingly fainter, more distant galaxies, a question will persist: what more is there that these telescopes cannot see? One answer is the source-subtracted Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB). The CIB is comprised of the collective light from all sources remaining after known, resolved sources are accounted for. A crucial point: unlike the cosmic microwave background, the CIB arises from discrete sources. Ever-more-sensitive surveys will identify the brightest of these, allowing them to be removed, and – like peeling layers off an onion – reveal deeper layers of the CIB. In this way it is possible to measure the contributions from populations not accessible to direct telescopic observation. Measurement of fluctuations in the source-subtracted CIB, i.e., the spatial power spectrum of the CIB after subtracting resolved sources, provides a robust means of characterizing its faint, and potentially new, populations. Studies over the past 15 years have revealed source-subtracted CIB fluctuations on scales out to ∼ 100′ which cannot be explained by extrapolating from known galaxy populations. Moreover, they appear highly coherent with the unresolved Cosmic X-ray Background, hinting at a significant population of accreting black holes among the CIB sources. Characterizing the source-subtracted CIB with high accuracy, and thereby con- straining the nature of the new populations, is feasible with upcoming instruments and would produce critically important cosmological information in the next decade. New coextensive 1 deep and wide-area near-infrared, X-ray, and microwave surveys will bring decisive opportunities to examine, with high fidelity, the spatial spectrum and origin of the CIB fluctuations and their cross-correlations with cosmic microwave and X-ray backgrounds, and determine the formation epochs and the nature of the new sources (stellar nucleosynthetic or accreting black holes).