Probing Early Structure Formation with Far-Infrared Background Correlations

The large-scale structure of high-redshift galaxies produces correlated anisotropy in the far-infrared background (FIRB). In regions of the sky where the thermal emission from Galactic dust is well below average, these high-redshift correlations may be the most significant source of angular fluctuation power over a wide range of angular scales, from ~7' to ~3°, and frequencies, from ~400 to ~1000 GHz. The strength of this signal should allow detailed studies of the statistics of the FIRB fluctuations, including the shape of the angular power spectrum at a given frequency and the degree of coherence between FIRB maps at different frequencies. The FIRB correlations depend on and hence constrain the redshift-dependent spectral energy distributions, number counts, and clustering bias of the galaxies and active nuclei that contribute to the background. We quantify the accuracy to which Planck and a newly proposed balloon-borne mission, Explorer of Diffuse Galactic Emissions, could constrain models of the high-redshift universe through the measurement of FIRB fluctuations. We conclude that the average bias of high-redshift galaxies could be measured to an accuracy of ≲1% or, for example, separated into four redshift bins with ~10% accuracy.