FIRBACK: III. Catalog, source counts, and cosmological implications of the 170μm ISO deep survey

The FIRBACK (Far Infrared BACKground) survey is one of the deepest imaging surveys carried out at 170 μm with ISOPHOT onboard ISO, and is aimed at the study of the structure of the Cosmic Far Infrared Background. This paper provides the analysis of resolved sources. After a validated process of data reduction and calibration, we perform intensive simulations to optimize the source extraction, measure the confusion noise (σ_c = 45 mJy), and give the photometric and astrometric accuracies. 196 galaxies with flux S > 3σ_c are detected in the area of 3.89 square degrees. Counts of sources with flux S > 4σ_c present a steep slope of 3.3 ± 0.6 on a differential "log N-log S"plot between 180 and 500 mJy. As a consequence, the confusion level is high and will impact dramatically on future IR deep surveys. This strong evolution, compared with a slope of 2.5 from Euclidian geometry, is in line with models implying a strongly evolving Luminous Infrared Galaxy population. The resolved sources account for less than 10% of the Cosmic Infrared Background at 170 μm, which is expected to be resolved into sources in the 1 to 10 mJy range.