H-ATLAS: The cosmic abundance of dust from the far-infrared background power spectrum

TL;DR

This paper measures the angular power spectrum of the cosmic far-infrared background using Herschel data, revealing galaxy clustering patterns and estimating the cosmic dust abundance across redshifts.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed modeling of CFIRB anisotropies with a conditional luminosity function approach, estimating dust abundance up to redshift 3.

Findings

Confirmed the presence of one-halo and two-halo clustering terms.

Estimated cosmic dust density to be between 10^{-6} and 8 x 10^{-6}.

Found consistency with quasar reddening and magnification measurements.

Abstract

We present a measurement of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic far-infrared background (CFIRB) anisotropies in one of the extragalactic fields of the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS) at 250, 350 and 500 \mu m bands. Consistent with recent measurements of the CFIRB power spectrum in Herschel-SPIRE maps, we confirm the existence of a clear one-halo term of galaxy clustering on arcminute angular scales with large-scale two-halo term of clustering at 30 arcminutes to angular scales of a few degrees. The power spectrum at the largest angular scales, especially at 250 \mu m, is contaminated by the Galactic cirrus. The angular power spectrum is modeled using a conditional luminosity function approach to describe the spatial distribution of unresolved galaxies that make up the bulk of the CFIRB. Integrating over the dusty galaxy population responsible for the background anisotropies, we find that the cosmic abundance of dust, relative to the critical density, to be between \Omega_dust=10^{-6} and 8 x 10^{-6} in the redshift range z ~ 0-3. This dust abundance is consistent with estimates of the dust content in the Universe using quasar reddening and magnification measurements in the SDSS.