Fluctuation Analysis of the Far-Infrared Background - Information from the Confusion

Abstract

We are investigating to what extent one can use a P(D) analysis to extract number counts of unclustered sources from maps of the far infrared background. Currently available such maps, and those expected to emerge in near future are dominated by confusion noise due to poor resolution. We simulate background maps with an underlying two slope model for N(S) and we find that in an experiment of FIRBACK type we can extract the high flux slope with an error of few percent while other parameters are not so well constrained. We find, however, that in a SIRTF type experiment all parameters of this N(S) model can be extracted with errors of only few percent.