AKARI far-infrared maps of the zodiacal dust bands

Abstract

Abstract Zodiacal emission is thermal emission from interplanetary dust. Its contribution to the sky brightness is non-negligible in the region near the ecliptic plane, even in the far-infrared (far-IR) wavelength regime. We analyze zodiacal emission observed by the AKARI far-IR all-sky survey, which covers 97% of the entire sky at arcminute-scale resolution in four photometric bands, with central wavelengths of 65, 90, 140, and 160 μm. AKARI detected small-scale structures in the zodiacal dust cloud, including the asteroidal dust bands and the circumsolar ring, at far-IR wavelengths. Although the smooth component of the zodiacal emission structure in the far-IR sky can be reproduced well by models based on existing far-IR observations, previous zodiacal emission models have discrepancies in the small-scale structures compared with observations. We investigate the geometry of the small-scale dust-band structures in the AKARI far-IR all-sky maps and construct template maps of the asteroidal dust bands and the circumsolar ring components based on the AKARI far-IR maps. In the maps, ± 1$_{.}^{\circ}$4, ± 2$_{.}^{\circ}$1, and ± 10° asteroidal dust-band structures are detected in the 65 μm and 90 μm bands. A possible ± 17° band may also have been detected. No evident dust-band structures are identified in either the 140 μm or the 160 μm bands. By subtracting the dust-band templates constructed in this paper, we can achieve a similar level of flux calibration of the AKARI far-IR all-sky maps in the |β| < 40° region to that in the region for |β| > 40°.