Extragalactic background light inferred from AEGIS galaxy-SED-type fractions

By A. Domínguez, Joel R. Primack, D. Rosario, Francisco Prada, R. Gilmore, S. Faber, D. Koo, R. Somerville, M. Pérez-Torres, P. Pérez-González and 8 more. 2010

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Theextragalacticbackgroundlight(EBL)isoffundamentalimportancebothforunderstanding the entire process of galaxy evolution and for"-ray astronomy, but the overall spectrum of the EBL between 0.1 and 1000µm has never been determined directly from galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) observations over a wide redshift range. The evolving, overall spectrum of the EBL is derived here utilizing a novel method based on observations only. This is achieved from the observed evolution of the rest-frameK-band galaxy luminosity function up to redshift 4, combined with a determination of galaxy-SED-type fractions. These are based on fitting Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE) templates to a multiwavelength sample of about 6000 galaxies in the redshift range from 0.2 to 1 from the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS). The changing fractions of quiescent galaxies, star-forming galaxies, starburst galaxies and active galactic nucleus (AGN) galaxies in that redshift range are estimated, and two alternative extrapolations of SED types to higher redshifts are considered. This allows calculation of the evolution of the luminosity densities from the ultraviolet (UV) to the infrared (IR), the evolving star formation ratedensityoftheUniverse,theevolvingcontributiontothebolometricEBLfromthedifferent galaxy populations including AGN galaxies and the buildup of the EBL. Our EBL calculations are compared with those from a semi-analytic model, another observationally based model and observational data. The EBL uncertainties in our modelling based directly on the data are quantified, and their consequences for attenuation of very-high-energy"-rays due to pair production on the EBL are discussed. It is concluded that the EBL is well constrained from the UV to the mid-IR, but independent efforts from IR and"-ray astronomy are needed in order to reduce the uncertainties in the far-IR.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1137b6ba8f0a9e313b75f5739405eec5609a0e4e

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Citations in the corpus

THE DEPENDENCE OF QUENCHING UPON THE INNER STRUCTURE OF GALAXIES AT 0.5 ⩽ z < 0.8 IN THE DEEP2/AEGIS SURVEY (2012, background): “…that the number of red galaxies has at least doubled sincez ∼ 1 while the number of blue galaxies has remained relatively constant (Bell et al. 2004b; Bundy et al. 2006; Faber et al. 2007; Arnouts et al. 2007; Brown et al. 2007; Ilbert et al. 2010; Domínguez et al. 2011; Gonçalves et al. 2012).”
2FHL: THE SECOND CATALOG OF HARD FERMI-LAT SOURCES (2015, methodology): “…be parameterized by an optical depth τ that can be derived from empirical EBL models (e.g., Franceschini et al. 2008; Finke et al. 2010; Kneiske & Dole 2010; Domínguez et al. 2011b; Gilmore et al. 2012; Helgason & Kashlinsky 2012; Stecker et al. 2012; Scully et al. 2014; Khaire & Srianand 2014).”
MAGIC DISCOVERY OF VERY HIGH ENERGY EMISSION FROM THE FSRQ PKS 1222+21 (2011, methodology): “…VHE γ-ray absorption due to pair-production with low energy photons of the EBL by using different state-of-the-art EBL models, namely the models by Dominguez et al. (2011); Kneiske & Dole (2010); Gilmore et al. (2009); Franceschini et al. (2008) and the “max high UV” EBL model described in…”
THE EXTRAGALACTIC BACKGROUND LIGHT, THE HUBBLE CONSTANT, AND ANOMALIES: CONCLUSIONS FROM 20 YEARS OF TeV GAMMA-RAY OBSERVATIONS (2015, methodology): “These two state-of-the-art models from independent groups have been chosen to calibrate our approach, and we note that using a different model (e.g., Domínguez et al. 2011b, closer to f 1.2evol = ) has a minimal impact on our results, well below the uncertainties quoted in the following.”
Measurement of the extragalactic background light imprint on the spectra of the brightest blazars observed with H.E.S.S. (2012, methodology): “The impact of the latter is evaluated with the data, testing ad hoc intrinsic models, while the former is compared with a concurrent modelling established by Domínguez et al. (2011).”
Extreme TeV blazars and the intergalactic magnetic field (2010, result): “…here,0.1 − 15 µm, several of recent EBL estimates converge: the recent models f Franceschini et al. (2008), Gilmore et al. (2009), Finke et al. (2010), Dominguez et al. (2010), agree well (but see Orr et al. 2011) and are consistent with the low level of the EBL suggested by the rec nt…”
Cosmological Magnetic Fields: Their Generation, Evolution and Observation (2013, methodology): “…(2012) have investigated the influence of this uncertainty on the lower bounds on IGMF and found that reducing to EBL density to the level of 0.8 of the density assumed in the models of Franceschini et al (2008) and Domı́nguez et al (2011) reduces the lower bound on the IGMF significantly, see Fig.”