HerMES: The SPIRE confusion limit
H. T. Nguyen (JPL, Caltech), B. Schulz, L. Levenson, A. Amblard, V., Arumugam, H. Aussel, T. Babbedge, A. Blain, J. Bock, A. Boselli, V. Buat, N., Castro-Rodriguez, A. Cava, P. Chanial, E. Chapin, D. L. Clements, A. Conley,, L. Conversi, A. Cooray, C. D. Dowell, E. Dwek
TL;DR
This paper measures the confusion noise levels of SPIRE photometers on the Herschel Space Observatory, providing key sensitivity limits for future deep sky observations in the far-infrared.
Contribution
It presents the first measurement of confusion noise for SPIRE, establishing baseline sensitivity limits for Herschel observations.
Findings
Confusion noise levels are 5.8, 6.3, and 6.8 mJy/beam at 250, 350, and 500 microns.
Confusion noise is consistent across different survey fields.
Results help estimate integration times for confusion-limited observations.
Abstract
We report on the sensitivity of SPIRE photometers on the Herschel Space Observatory. Specifically, we measure the confusion noise from observations taken during the Science Demonstration Phase of the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey. Confusion noise is defined to be the spatial variation of the sky intensity in the limit of infinite integration time, and is found to be consistent among the different fields in our survey at the level of 5.8, 6.3 and 6.8 mJy/beam at 250, 350 and 500 microns, respectively. These results, together with the measured instrument noise, may be used to estimate the integration time required for confusion-limited maps, and provide a noise estimate for maps obtained by SPIRE.
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