Looking at cosmic near-infrared background radiation anisotropies

Abstract

While the cosmic microwave background originates from the very early Universe, the cosmic infrared background contains the cumulative emission of sources from the earliest epochs to the present time. It is generated from nucleosynthetic sources and gravitational sources. The source-subtracted spatial fluctuations of the cosmic infrared background provide information on the brightness and clustering of sources too faint to detect individually. Among these are the very first stars in the Universe and an unexpectedly large fraction of black holes. Observational and theoretical efforts at decoding the cosmic infrared background are presented together with possible future tests and prospects.