Abstract

The deepest space- and ground-based observations find metal-enriched galaxies at cosmic times when the Universe was less than 1 Gyr old. These stellar populations had to be preceded by the metal-free first stars, known as 'population III'. Recent cosmic microwave background polarization measurements indicate that stars started forming early—when the Universe was 200 Myr old. It is now thought that population III stars were significantly more massive than the present metal-rich stellar populations. Although such sources will not be individually detectable by existing or planned telescopes, they would have produced significant cosmic infrared background radiation in the near-infrared, whose fluctuations reflect the conditions in the primordial density field. Here we report a measurement of diffuse flux fluctuations after removing foreground stars and galaxies. The anisotropies exceed the instrument noise and the more local foregrounds; they can be attributed to emission from population III stars, at an era dominated by these objects.

1. Observational Cosmology Laboratory,
2. SSAI,
3. NASA, Code 665, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

Correspondence to: A. Kashlinsky^1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to A.K. (Email: kashlinsky@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Received 3 May 2005; Accepted 12 August 2005

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