• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.63-65
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• 2017

The zodiacal light emission is the thermal emission from the interplanetary dust and the dominant diffuse radiation in the mid- to far-infrared wavelength region. Even in the far-infrared, the contribution of the zodiacal emission is not negligible at the region near the ecliptic plane. The AKARI far-infrared all-sky survey covered 97% of the whole sky in four photometric bands with band central wavelengths of 65, 90, 140, and $160{\mu}m$. AKARI detected the small-scale structure of the zodiacal dust cloud, such as the asteroidal dust bands and the circumsolar ring, in far-infrared wavelength region. Although the most part of the zodiacal light structure in the AKARI far-infrared all-sky image can be well reproduced with the DIRBE zodiacal light model, there are discrepancies in the small-scale structures. In particular, the intensity and the ecliptic latitude of the peak position of the asteroidal dust bands cannot be reproduced precisely with the DIRBE models. The AKARI observational data during more than one year has advantages over the 10-month DIRBE data in modeling the full-sky zodiacal dust cloud. The resulting small-scale zodiacal light structure template has been used to subtract the zodiacal light from the AKARI all-sky maps.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.67-71
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• 2017

Debris disks are circumstellar dust disks around main-sequence stars. They are important observational clues to understanding the planetary system formation. The zodiacal light is the thermal emission from the dust disk in our Solar system. For a comprehensive understanding of the nature and the evolution of dust disks around main-sequence stars, we try a comparative study of debris disks and the zodiacal light. We search for debris disks using the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky point source catalog. By applying accurate flux estimate of the photospheric emission based on the follow-up near-infrared observations with IRSF, we have improved the detection rate of debris disks. For a detailed study of the structure and grain properties in the zodiacal dust cloud, as an example of dust disks around main-sequence stars, we analyze the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky diffuse maps. As a result of the debris disks search, we found old (>1 Gyr) debris disks which have large excess emission compared to their age, which cannot be explained simply by the conventional steady-state evolution model. From the zodiacal light analysis, we find the possibility that the dust grains trapped in the Earth's resonance orbits have increased by a factor of ~3 in the past ~20 years. Combining these results, we discuss the non-steady processes in debris disks and the zodiacal light.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.159-169
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• 2004

This is a proposal to probe local part of the interplanetary dust (IPD) cloud complex and retrieve mean volume emissivity of the local IPDs at mid-infrared wavelengths. This will be done by monitoring, with Infrared Camera (IRC) aboard the ASTRO-F, the annual modulation of the zodiacal emission. In pointing mode of the ASTRO-F mission the spacecraft can make attitude maneuvering over approximately ${\pm}1^{\circ}$ range centered at solar elongation $90^{\circ}$ in the ecliptic plane. The attitude maneuvering combined with high sensitivity of the IRC will provide us with a unique opportunity observationally to take derivatives of the zodiacal emission brightness with respect to the solar elongation. From the resulting differential of the brightness over the ${\pm}1^{\circ}$ range, one can directly determine the mean volume emissivity of the local IPDs with a sufficient accuracy to de-modulate the annual emissivity variations due to the Earth's elliptical motion and the dis-alignment of the maximum IPD density plane with respect to the ecliptic. The non-zero eccentricity ($e_{\oplus}$= 0.0167) of the Earth's orbit combined with the sensitive temperature dependence of the Planck function would bring modulations of amplitude at least $3.34\%$ to the zodiacal emission brightness at mid-infrared wavelengths, with which one may determine the IPD temperature T(r) and mean number density n(r) as functions of heliocentric distance r. This will in turn fix the power-law exponent $\delta$ in the relation $T(r) = T_o(r/r_o)^{-\delta}$ for the dust temperature and v in $n(r) = n_o(r/r_o)^-v$ for the density. We discuss how one may de-couple the notorious degeneracy of cross-section, density, reference temperature $T_o$ and exponent $\delta$.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.59-61
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• 2017

The AKARI 9 and 18 µm diffuse maps reveal the all-sky distribution of the interstellar medium with relatively high spatial resolution of ~6". The zodiacal light is a dominant foreground component in the mid-infrared. Thus, removal of the zodiacal light is a critical issue to study low surface brightness Galactic diffuse emission. We carried out modeling of the zodiacal light based on the Kelsall model which is constructed from the COBE data. In the previous study, only a time-varying component of the zodiacal light brightness was used for determination of the model parameters. However, there remains a residual component of the zodiacal light around the ecliptic plane even after removal with the model. Therefore, instead of using a time-varying component, we use the absolute brightness of the zodiacal light and we find that the new model can better remove the residual component. As a result, the best-fit model parameters are changed from those in the previous study. We discuss the properties of the zodiacal light based on our new result.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.33-33
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• 2001

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.48-48
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• 2000

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.179-184
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• 2004

We have developed a wide-field imaging camera system, called WICZO, to monitor light of the night sky over extended period. Such monitoring is necessary for studying the morphology of interplanetary dust cloud and also the time and spatial variations of airglow emission. The system consists of an electric cooler a CCD camera with $60\%$ quantum efficiency at 500nm, and a fish-eye lens with $180^{\circ}$ field of view. Wide field imaging is highly desired in light of the night sky observations in general, because the zodiacal light and the airglow emission extend over the entire sky. This paper illustrates the design of WICZO, reports the result of its laboratory performance test, and presents the first night sky image, which was taken, under collaboration with Byulmaro Observatory, on top of Mt. Bongrae at Yongweol in January, 2004.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.33-33
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• 2002

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.11
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• pp.5.3-6
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• 1986

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.321-326
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• 2017

We analyzed spectral data of the astrophysical diffuse emission obtained with the low-resolution spectroscopy mode on the AKARI InfraRed Camera (IRC) in the $1.8-5.3{\mu}m$ wavelength region. Advanced reduction methods specialized for slit spectroscopy of diffuse sky spectra have been developed, and a catalog of 278 spectra of the diffuse sky covering a wide range of Galactic and ecliptic latitudes was constructed. Using this catalog, two other major foreground components, the zodiacal light (ZL) and the diffuse Galactic light (DGL), were separated and subtracted by taking correlations with ZL brightness estimated by the DIRBE ZL model and with the $100{\mu}m$ dust thermal emission, respectively. The isotropic emission was interpreted as the extragalactic background light (EBL), which shows significant excess over the integrated light of galaxies at <$4{\mu}m$.