Ultraviolet luminosity density of the universe during the epoch of reionization.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26348033.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms8945 and PMC identifier 4569697.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The spatial fluctuations of the extragalactic background light trace the total emission from all stars and galaxies in the Universe. A multiwavelength study can be used to measure the integrated emission from first galaxies during reionization when the Universe was about 500 million years old. Here we report arcmin-scale spatial fluctuations in one of the deepest sky surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope in five wavebands between 0.6 and 1.6 μm. We model-fit the angular power spectra of intensity fluctuation measurements to find the ultraviolet luminosity density of galaxies at redshifts greater than 8 to be log ρ(UV) = 27.4(+0.2)(-1.2) ergs(-1) Hz(-1) Mpc(-3) (1σ). This level of integrated light emission allows for a significant surface density of fainter primeval galaxies that are below the point-source detection level in current surveys.