First Sources in Infrared Light: Stars, Supernovae and Miniquasars

Preprint
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
  • 5 April 2004
Abstract
The cosmic infrared background (IRB) at wavelengths between 1 microns and 3 microns provides a useful probe of early star-formation prior to and during reionization. To explain the high optical depth to electron scattering, as measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), one requires significant star-formation activity at redshifts 10 and higher. We study the relative contributions from first stars, supernovae and quasars to the infrared background (IRB) for reasonable star formation rates at high redshift. In addition to massive stars, the IRB flux may be contributed by a population of early miniquasars. Current background measurements limit the fraction of mass in these stars that is converted to seed black holes to be roughly less than 10%. In the case of supernovae, though an individual supernova is much brighter than the progenitor star, due to the shorter lifetime of order few months, the fractional contribution to the IRB remains at a level of 10% and below when compared to the same contribution from stars. The bright supernovae may, however, be directly detectable.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: