An ISOCAM Mid-IR Survey through Gravitationally Lensing Galaxy Clusters

Abstract

We present imaging results and source counts from a deep ISOCAM cosmological survey at 15 microns, through gravitationally lensing galaxy clusters. We take advantage of the cluster gravitational amplification to increase the sensitivity of our survey. We detect a large number of luminous mid-IR sources behind the cluster lenses, down to very faint fluxes, which would have been unreachable without the gravitational lensing effect. These source counts, corrected for lensing distortion effects and incompleteness, are in excess of the predictions of no-evolution models that fit local IRAS counts. By integrating the 15 microns source counts from our counts limit, 30 microJy, to 50 mJy we estimate the resolved mid-IR background radiation intensity.