A Novel Approach to Constrain the Escape Fraction and Dust Content at High Redshift Using the Cosmic Infrared Background Fractional Anisotropy

The Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) provides an opportunity to constrain many properties of the high-redshift (z > 6) stellar population as a whole. This background, specifically from 1 to 200 μm, should contain information about the era of reionization and the stars that are responsible for these ionizing photons. In this paper, we look at the fractional anisotropy (δI/I) of this high-redshift population, where δI is the ratio of the magnitude of the fluctuations and I is the mean intensity. We show that this can be used to constrain the escape fraction of the population as a whole, because the magnitude of the fluctuations of the CIB depends on the escape fraction, while the mean intensity does not. This results in lower values of the escape fraction producing higher values of the fractional anisotropy. This difference is predicted to be larger at longer wavelength bands (above 10 μm), albeit it is also much harder to observe in that range. We show that the fractional anisotropy can also be used to separate a dusty from a dust-free population. Finally, we discuss the constraints provided by current observations on the CIB fractional anisotropy.