Diffuse Galactic light at high Galactic latitude: nature and interpretation

TL;DR

This paper re-examines the nature of diffuse Galactic light at high Galactic latitudes, challenging the need for extended red emission by analyzing brightness and color data from Pioneer and other sources.

Contribution

It provides a new interpretation of diffuse Galactic light that does not require extended red emission, based on brightness and color analysis at high Galactic latitudes.

Findings

Pioneer data and traditional models show close colors for DGL and integrated star and galaxy light.

The analysis supports a simple scattering model without extended red emission.

The results suggest that scattered starlight explains DGL without additional emission mechanisms.

Abstract

The hypothesis of an extended red emission (ERE) in diffuse Galactic light (DGL) has been put forward in 1998 by Gordon, Witt and Friedmann who found that scattered starlight was not enough to explain the amount of DGL in the R band, in some high Galactic latitude directions. This paper re-investigates, for high Galactic latitudes, the brightnesses and colours of DGL, integrated star and galaxy light (ISGL), and of the total extrasolar light (ISGL+DGL) measured by Pioneer. Under the traditional assumption that DGL is forward scattering of background starlight by interstellar dust on the line of sight, ISGL and Pioneer have very close colours, as it is found by Gordon, Witt and Friedmann. Pioneer observations at high |b| thus accept an alternative and simple interpretation, with no involvement of ERE in DGL.