The Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER): The Wide-field Imagers

Creators: Bock, J. J.; Sullivan, I.; Arai, T.; Battle, J.; Cooray, A.; Hristov, V.; Keating, B.; Kim, M. G.; Lam, A. C.; Lee, D. H.; Levenson, L. R.; Mason, P.; Matsumoto, T.; Matsuura, S.; Mitchell-Wynne, K.; Nam, U. W.; Renbarger, T.; Smidt, J.; Suzuki, K.; Tsumura, K.; Wada, T.; Zemcov, M.

Abstract

We have developed and characterized an imaging instrument to measure the spatial properties of the diffuse near-infrared extragalactic background light (EBL) in a search for fluctuations from z > 6 galaxies during the epoch of reionization. The instrument is part of the Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment (CIBER), designed to observe the EBL above Earth's atmosphere during a suborbital sounding rocket flight. The imaging instrument incorporates a 2° × 2° field of view to measure fluctuations over the predicted peak of the spatial power spectrum at 10 arcmin, and 7" × 7" pixels, to remove lower redshift galaxies to a depth sufficient to reduce the low-redshift galaxy clustering foreground below instrumental sensitivity. The imaging instrument employs two cameras with Δλ/λ ~ 0.5 bandpasses centered at 1.1 μm and 1.6 μm to spectrally discriminate reionization extragalactic background fluctuations from local foreground fluctuations. CIBER operates at wavelengths where the electromagnetic spectrum of the reionization extragalactic background is thought to peak, and complements fluctuation measurements by AKARI and Spitzer at longer wavelengths. We have characterized the instrument in the laboratory, including measurements of the sensitivity, flat-field response, stray light performance, and noise properties. Several modifications were made to the instrument following a first flight in 2009 February. The instrument performed to specifications in three subsequent flights, and the scientific data are now being analyzed.

Additional Information

© 2013 American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 October 21; accepted 2012 June 20; published 2013 August 1. This work was supported by NASA APRA research grants NNX07AI54G, NNG05WC18G, NNX07AG43G, NNX07AJ24G, and NNX10AE12G. Initial support was provided by an award to J.B. from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Director's Research and Development Fund. Japanese participation in CIBER was supported by KAKENHI (20·34, 18204018, 19540250, 21340047, and 21111004) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). Korean participation in CIBER was supported by the Pioneer Project from the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This work made use of images and/or data products provided by the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey (NDWFS), which is supported by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, operated by AURA, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. We would like to acknowledge the dedicated efforts of the sounding rocket staff at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and the White Sands Missile Range. We also acknowledge the work of the Genesia Corporation for technical support of the CIBER optics. Our thanks to Y. Gong for sharing the REBL curves shown in Figure 1. A.C. acknowledges support from an NSF CAREER award, B.K. acknowledges support from a UCSD Hellman Faculty Fellowship, K.T. acknowledges support from the JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists, and M.Z. acknowledges support from a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship. Facility: CIBER

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