Optical Extragalactic Background Light
Rebecca Bernstein (University of Michigan)
The integrated optical surface brightness of the Universe --- the optical
extragalactic background light --- is dominated by starlight from galaxies
(resolved and unresolved) to redshifts z<8. As such, it is a fundamental
constraint on the star formation history of the Universe. In this talk, I
will discuss the our recent results on the mean flux of the optical EBL at
3000, 5500, and 8000A and describe the coordinated HST/ground--based
observing program from which these results were obtained. The EBL flux we
detect is significantly larger than the integrated flux of resolved
galaxies using standard photometric methods. Part of this difference is
due to the difficulty of recovering flux in the low surface brightness
wings of well-detected galaxies. I will discuss the implications of these
results in the context of infrared EBL measurements, galaxy luminosity
functions, and number counts and constraints on the star formation
history, metal enrichment, and stellar baryon fraction in the Universe.
