Infrared luminosity functions based on 18 mid-infrared bands: revealing cosmic star formation history with AKARI and Hyper Suprime-Cam

Abstract

Much of the star formation is obscured by dust. For the complete understanding of the cosmic star formation history (CSFH), infrared (IR) census is indispensable. AKARI carried out deep mid-infrared observations using its continuous 9-band filters in the North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) field (5.4 deg$^2$). This took significant amount of satellite's lifetime, $\sim$10\% of the entire pointed observations. By combining archival Spitzer (5 bands) and WISE (4 bands) mid-IR photometry, we have, in total, 18 band mid-IR photometry, which is the most comprehensive photometric coverage in mid-IR for thousands of galaxies. However previously, we only had shallow optical imaging ($\sim$25.9ABmag) in a small area of 1.0 deg$^2$. As a result, there remained thousands of AKARI's infrared sources undetected in optical. Using the new Hyper Suprime-Cam on Subaru telescope, we obtained deep enough optical images of the entire AKARI NEP field in 5 broad bands ($g\sim$27.5mag). These provided photometric redshift, and thereby IR luminosity for the previously undetected faint AKARI IR sources. Combined with the accurate mid-IR luminosity measurement, we constructed mid-IR LFs, and thereby performed a census of dust-obscured CSFH in the entire AKARI NEP field. We have measured restframe 8$μ$m, 12$μ$m luminosity functions (LFs), and estimated total infrared LFs at 0.35$<$z$<$2.2. Our results are consistent with our previous work, but with much reduced statistical errors thanks to the large area coverage of the new data. We have possibly witnessed the turnover of CSFH at $z\sim$2.