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Tracing the first stars with fluctuations of the cosmic infrared background

Nature volume 438, pages 45–50 (2005)Cite this article

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.

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Figure 1: Spectra of CIB fluctuations.
Figure 2: Colour properties of clipped maps.
Figure 3: Contribution to CIB flux from Spitzer IRAC galaxy counts at 3.6 µm and 4.5 µm.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Fazio for access to the IRAC Deep Survey data and D. Fixsen and G. Hinshaw for comments on drafts of this paper. This Article reports work supported by the National Science Foundation, and which is based on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope (this telescope is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA). Support for this work was also provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. Author Contributions A.K. is responsible for the idea, clipping the maps, power spectrum and correlation analyses, evaluating the extragalactic contributions and writing the paper. R.G.A. is responsible for the images for analysis, providing the model of the resolved sources with the IRAC PSF, and evaluating systematics, instrument, and zodiacal and cirrus contributions. J.M. and S.H.M. developed analysis strategy and searched for alternative explanations for the fluctuations. All authors provided critical review of the analysis techniques, results and manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Observational Cosmology Laboratory,

    A. Kashlinsky, R. G. Arendt, J. Mather & S. H. Moseley

  2. SSAI,

    A. Kashlinsky & R. G. Arendt

  3. NASA, Code 665, Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, 20771, Greenbelt, USA

    J. Mather & S. H. Moseley

Authors
  1. A. Kashlinsky
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  3. J. Mather
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  4. S. H. Moseley
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Correspondence to A. Kashlinsky.

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Kashlinsky, A., Arendt, R., Mather, J. et al. Tracing the first stars with fluctuations of the cosmic infrared background. Nature 438, 45–50 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04143

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