Brightness and Fluctuation of Mid-Infrared Sky from AKARI Observations

We present the smoothness of mid-infrared sky brightness from the Japanese infrared astronomical satellite, AKARI observations. AKARI monitored the north ecliptic pole (NEP) during its cold phase with nine wavebands from 2.4 to 24 ${\mu}m$, out of which six mid-infrared bands are used in this study. Simple sinusoidal fit to the seasonal variation of the sky brightness shows that the mid-infrared brightness towards the NEP is not affected by small-scale features of the interplanetary dust cloud. We applied the power spectrum analysis to the images to search for the fluctuation of sky brightness. The fluctuation powers at 200 arcsecond are estimated to be at most $1.58{\pm}0.33\;nW\;m^{-2}sr^{-1}$ or 0.13% of the total brightness at $7{\mu}m$ and a tleast $0.64{\pm}0.11\;nW\;m^{-2}sr^{-1}$ or 0.02% at $18{\mu}m$. The residual fluctuations at a few arcminute scales at short mid-infrared wavelengths (7, 9, and 11 ${\mu}m$) are consistent with those expected from the diffuse galactic light. At long mid-infrared wavelengths (15, 18, and 24 ${\mu}m$) the measured fluctuations are comparable to or smaller than the one caused by photon noise and their sources are not identified. We conclude that the upper limit of the fluctuation in the zodiacal light is about 0.02% of the sky brightness.