Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER): A probe of Extragalactic Background Light from reionization

Abstract The Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment (CIBER) is a rocket-borne absolute photometry imaging and spectroscopy experiment optimized to detect signatures of first-light galaxies present during reionization in the unresolved IR background. CIBER-I consists of a wide-field two-color camera for fluctuation measurements, a low-resolution absolute spectrometer for absolute EBL measurements, and a narrow-band imaging spectrometer to measure and correct scattered emission from the foreground zodiacal cloud. CIBER-I was successfully flown in February 2009 and July 2010 and four more flights are planned by 2014, including an upgrade (CIBER-II). We propose, after several additional flights of CIBER-I, an improved CIBER-II camera consisting of a wide-field 30 cm imager operating in 4 bands between 0.5 and 2.1 microns. It is designed for a high significance detection of unresolved IR background fluctuations at the minimum level necessary for reionization. With a FOV 50 to 2000 times larger than existing IR instruments on satellites, CIBER-II will carry out the definitive study to establish the surface density of sources responsible for reionization.