Cosmoglobe DR2. II. CIB monopole measurements from COBE-DIRBE through global Bayesian analysis

TL;DR

This paper presents improved measurements of the cosmic infrared background monopole spectrum using a global Bayesian analysis of reprocessed COBE-DIRBE sky maps, reducing contamination and refining previous constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel global Bayesian framework that simultaneously fits multiple datasets to derive more accurate CIB monopole constraints from COBE-DIRBE data.

Findings

Detected isotropic signals in six DIRBE bands with lower amplitudes than previous results.

Lowered the estimated CIB monopole in key bands by up to 74%.

Provided tighter upper limits on CIB monopole in bands with excess radiation.

Abstract

We derive new constraints on the CIB monopole spectrum from a set of reprocessed COBE-DIRBE sky maps that have lower instrumental and astrophysical contamination than the legacy DIRBE maps. These maps have been generated through a global Bayesian analysis framework that simultaneously fits cosmological, astrophysical, and instrumental parameters, as described in a series of papers collectively referred to as Cosmoglobe DR2. We have applied this method to the DIRBE TODs, complemented by selected HFI and FIRAS sky maps to break key astrophysical degeneracies, as well as WISE and Gaia compact object catalogs. In this paper, we focus on the CIB monopole constraints that result from this work. We report positive detections of an isotropic signal in six out of the ten DIRBE bands (1.25, 2.2, 3.5, 100, 140, and 240 $\mathrm{\mu m}$). For the 2.2 $\mu$m channel, we find an amplitude of $10.2\pm1.2\,\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$, 74 % lower than that reported from the official DIRBE maps. For the 240 $\mu\mathrm{m}$ channel, we find $6\pm3\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$, 56 % lower than the official DIRBE release. We interpret these lower values as resulting from improved zodiacal light and Galactic foreground modeling. For the bands between 4.9 and 60 $\mu\mathrm{m}$, the presence of excess radiation in solar-centric coordinates precludes the definition of lower limits. However, the analysis still provides well-defined upper limits. For the 12 $\mu\mathrm{m}$ channel, we find an upper 95 % confidence limit of 55 $\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$, more than a factor of eight lower than the corresponding legacy result of 468 $\mathrm{nW\,m^{-2}\,sr^{-1}}$. The results presented in this paper redefine the state-of-the-art CIB monopole constraints from COBE-DIRBE, and provide a real-world illustration of the power of global end-to-end analysis of multiple complementary datasets.