Dissecting the cosmic infra-red background with Herschel /PEP

The constituents of the cosmic IR background (CIB) are studied at its peak wavelengths (100 and 160 μm) by exploiting Herschel/PACS observations of the GOODS-N, Lockman Hole, and COSMOS fields in the PACS evolutionary probe (PEP) guaranteed-time survey. The GOODS-N data reach 3s depths of ∼3.0 mJy at 100 μm and ∼5.7 mJy at 160 μm. At these levels, source densities are 40 and 18 beams/source, respectively, thus hitting the confusion limit at 160 μm. Differential number counts extend from a few mJy up to 100-200 mJy, and are approximated as a double power law, with the break lying between 5 and 10 mJy. The available ancillary information allows us to split number counts into redshift bins. At z = 0.5 we isolate a class of luminous sources (LIR ∼ 1011 L⊙), whose SEDs resemble late-spiral galaxies, peaking at ∼130 μm restframe and significantly colder than what is expected on the basis of pre-Herschel models. By integrating number counts over the whole covered flux range, we obtain a surface brightness of 6.36±1.67 and 6.58±1.62 [nWm-2 sr-1] at 100 and 160 μm, resolving ∼45% and ∼52% of the CIB, respectively. When stacking 24 μm sources, the inferred CIB lies within 1.1s and 0.5s from direct measurements in the two bands, and fractions increase to 50% and 75%. Most of this resolved CIB fraction was radiated at z = 1.0, with 160 μm sources found at higher redshift than 100 μm ones. © 2010 ESO