Confusion of extragalactic sources in the far infrared: a baseline assessment of the performance of PRIMAger in intensity and polarization

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Autori principali: Béthermin, Matthieu, Bolatto, Alberto D., Boulanger, François, Bradford, Charles M., Burgarella, Denis, Ciesla, Laure, Donnellan, James, Hensley, Brandon S., Glenn, Jason, Lagache, Guilaine, Lopez-Rodriguez, Enrique, Oliver, Seb, Pope, Alexandra, Sauvage, Marc
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Béthermin, Matthieu
Bolatto, Alberto D.
Boulanger, François
Bradford, Charles M.
Burgarella, Denis
Ciesla, Laure
Donnellan, James
Hensley, Brandon S.
Glenn, Jason
Lagache, Guilaine
Lopez-Rodriguez, Enrique
Oliver, Seb
Pope, Alexandra
Sauvage, Marc
author_facet Béthermin, Matthieu
Bolatto, Alberto D.
Boulanger, François
Bradford, Charles M.
Burgarella, Denis
Ciesla, Laure
Donnellan, James
Hensley, Brandon S.
Glenn, Jason
Lagache, Guilaine
Lopez-Rodriguez, Enrique
Oliver, Seb
Pope, Alexandra
Sauvage, Marc
contents Because of their limited angular resolution, far-infrared telescopes are usually affected by confusion phenomenon. Since several galaxies can be located in the same instrumental beam, only the brightest objects emerge from the fluctuations caused by fainter sources. The probe far-infrared mission for astrophysics imager (PRIMAger) will observe the mid- and far-infrared (25-235 $μ$m) sky both in intensity and polarization. We aim to provide predictions of the confusion level and its consequences for future surveys. We produced simulated PRIMAger maps affected only by the confusion noise using the simulated infrared extragalactic sky (SIDES) semi-empirical simulation. We then estimated the confusion limit in these maps and extracted the sources using a basic blind extractor. By comparing the input galaxy catalog and the extracted source catalog, we derived various performance metrics as completeness, purity, and the accuracy of various measurements. In intensity, we predict that the confusion limit increases rapidly with increasing wavelength. The confusion limit in polarization is more than 100x lower. The measured flux density is dominated by the brightest galaxy in the beam, but other objects also contribute at longer wavelength (~30% at 235 $μ$m). We also show that galaxy clustering has a mild impact on confusion in intensity (up to 25%), while it is negligible in polarization. In intensity, a basic blind extraction will be sufficient to detect galaxies at the knee of the luminosity function up to z~3 and 10$^{11}$ M$_\odot$ main-sequence galaxies up to z~5. In polarization for a conservative sensitivity, we expect ~8 000 detections up to z=2.5 opening a totally new window on the high-z dust polarization. Finally, we show that intensity surveys at short wavelength and polarization surveys at long wavelength tend to reach confusion at similar depth. There is thus a strong synergy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_04320
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Confusion of extragalactic sources in the far infrared: a baseline assessment of the performance of PRIMAger in intensity and polarization
Béthermin, Matthieu
Bolatto, Alberto D.
Boulanger, François
Bradford, Charles M.
Burgarella, Denis
Ciesla, Laure
Donnellan, James
Hensley, Brandon S.
Glenn, Jason
Lagache, Guilaine
Lopez-Rodriguez, Enrique
Oliver, Seb
Pope, Alexandra
Sauvage, Marc
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Because of their limited angular resolution, far-infrared telescopes are usually affected by confusion phenomenon. Since several galaxies can be located in the same instrumental beam, only the brightest objects emerge from the fluctuations caused by fainter sources. The probe far-infrared mission for astrophysics imager (PRIMAger) will observe the mid- and far-infrared (25-235 $μ$m) sky both in intensity and polarization. We aim to provide predictions of the confusion level and its consequences for future surveys. We produced simulated PRIMAger maps affected only by the confusion noise using the simulated infrared extragalactic sky (SIDES) semi-empirical simulation. We then estimated the confusion limit in these maps and extracted the sources using a basic blind extractor. By comparing the input galaxy catalog and the extracted source catalog, we derived various performance metrics as completeness, purity, and the accuracy of various measurements. In intensity, we predict that the confusion limit increases rapidly with increasing wavelength. The confusion limit in polarization is more than 100x lower. The measured flux density is dominated by the brightest galaxy in the beam, but other objects also contribute at longer wavelength (~30% at 235 $μ$m). We also show that galaxy clustering has a mild impact on confusion in intensity (up to 25%), while it is negligible in polarization. In intensity, a basic blind extraction will be sufficient to detect galaxies at the knee of the luminosity function up to z~3 and 10$^{11}$ M$_\odot$ main-sequence galaxies up to z~5. In polarization for a conservative sensitivity, we expect ~8 000 detections up to z=2.5 opening a totally new window on the high-z dust polarization. Finally, we show that intensity surveys at short wavelength and polarization surveys at long wavelength tend to reach confusion at similar depth. There is thus a strong synergy.
title Confusion of extragalactic sources in the far infrared: a baseline assessment of the performance of PRIMAger in intensity and polarization
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.04320