Probing Early Structure Formation with Far-Infrared Background Correlations
L. Knox, A. Cooray, D. Eisenstein, Z. Haiman;
ApJ, 2001, 550, 7
ABSTRACT:The large-scale structure of high-redshift galaxies produces correlated anisotropy in the far-infrared background (FIRB).
In regions of the
sky where the thermal emission from Galactic dust is well below average,
these high-redshift correlations may be the most significant source of
angular fluctuation power over a wide range of angular scales, from ~7' to
~3°, and frequencies, from ~400 to ~1000 GHz.
The strength of this signal
should allow detailed studies of the statistics of the FIRB fluctuations,
including the shape of the angular power spectrum at a given frequency and the
degree of coherence between FIRB maps at different frequencies.
The FIRB
correlations depend on and hence constrain the redshift-dependent spectral energy
distributions, number counts, and clustering bias of the galaxies and active nuclei
that contribute to the background.
We quantify the accuracy to which
Planck and a newly proposed balloon-borne mission, Explorer of Diffuse
Galactic Emissions, could constrain models of the high-redshift universe
through the measurement of FIRB fluctuations.
We conclude that the average
bias of high-redshift galaxies could be measured to an accuracy of <~1%
or, for example, separated into four redshift bins with ~10% accuracy.
KEYWORDS: cosmology: cosmic microwave background, cosmology: observations, cosmology: theory, cosmology: diffuse radiation, galaxies: evolution, galaxies: formation
CODE: knox2001