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Ultraviolet luminosity density of the universe during the epoch of reionization
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Ultraviolet luminosity density of the universe during the epoch of reionization

Ketron Mitchell-Wynne, Asantha Cooray, Yan Gong, Matthew Ashby, Timothy Dolch, Henry Ferguson, Steven Finkelstein, Norman Grogin, Dale Kocevski, Anton Koekemoer, …
Nature communications, Vol.6(1), pp.7945-7945
01/09/2015
PMCID: PMC4569697
PMID: 26348033

Abstract

Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics
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 mm. 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 rho(UV) = 27.4(-1.2)(+0.2) ergs(-1)Hz(-1)Mpc(-3)(1 sigma). 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.
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https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8945View
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