First Detection of Galactic Latitude Dependence of Near-Infrared Diffuse Galactic Light from DIRBE Reanalysis

Observational study on near-infrared (IR) scattering properties of interstellar dust grains has been limited due to its faintness. Using all-sky maps obtained from Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE), we investigate the scattering property from diffuse Galactic light (DGL) measurements at 1.25, 2.2, and 3.5 μm in addition to our recent analyses of diffuse near-IR emission (Sano et al. 2015; Sano et al. 2016). As a result, we first find that the intensity ratios of near-IR DGL to 100 μm emission increase toward low Galactic latitudes at 1.25 and 2.2 μm. The derived latitude dependence can be reproduced by a scattered light model of interstellar dust with a large scattering asymmetry factor g = <cosθ> of $0.8^{+0.2}_{-0.3}$ at 1.25 and 2.2 μm, assuming an infinite Galaxy disk as an illuminating source. The derived asymmetry factor is comparable to the values obtained in the optical, but several times larger than that expected from a recent dust model. Since possible latitude dependence of ultraviolet-excited dust emission at 1.25 and 2.2 μm would reduce the large asymmetry factor to the reasonable value, our result may indicate the first detection of such an additional emission component in the diffuse interstellar medium.