Modeling of the zodiacal emission for the AKARI/IRC mid-infrared all-sky diffuse maps

TL;DR

This paper improves the modeling of zodiacal emission in the mid-infrared by utilizing AKARI data, reducing residuals, and revealing a more compact dust cloud and an isotropic component in the interplanetary dust cloud.

Contribution

The authors develop a new fitting method and refine the IPD cloud model, achieving better accuracy in reproducing the all-sky zodiacal emission distribution in the mid-IR.

Findings

Reduced residuals in zodiacal emission subtraction.

The smooth cloud is about 10% more compact than previous models.

Detected an isotropic interplanetary dust component.

Abstract

The zodiacal emission, which is the thermal infrared (IR) emission from the interplanetary dust (IPD) in our Solar System, has been studied for a long time. Nevertheless, accurate modeling of the zodiacal emission has not been successful to reproduce the all-sky spatial distribution of the zodiacal emission, especially in the mid-IR where the zodiacal emission peaks. We therefore aim to improve the IPD cloud model based on Kelsall et al. 1998, using the AKARI 9 and 18 micron all-sky diffuse maps. By adopting a new fitting method based on the total brightness, we have succeeded in reducing the residual levels after subtraction of the zodiacal emission from the AKARI data and thus in improving the modeling of the zodiacal emission. Comparing the AKARI and the COBE data, we confirm that the changes from the previous model to our new model are mostly due to model improvements, but not temporal variations between the AKARI and the COBE epoch, except for the position of the Earth-trailing blob. Our results suggest that the size of the smooth cloud, a dominant component in the model, is by about 10% more compact than previously thought, and that the dust sizes are not large enough to emit blackbody radiation in the mid-IR. Furthermore we significantly detect an isotropically-distributed IPD component, owing to accurate baseline measurement with AKARI.