Microwave thermal emission from the zodiacal dust cloud predicted with contemporary meteoroid models

Faculty of Physics, Bielefeld University, Postfach 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
e-mail: vdikarev@physik.uni-bielefeld.de

Received: 19 January 2015
Accepted: 2 July 2015

Abstract

Predictions of the microwave thermal emission from the zodiacal dust cloud are made using several contemporary meteoroid models to construct the distributions of the cross-section area of dust in space, and by applying the Mie light-scattering theory to estimate the temperatures and emissivities of dust particles in a wide range of sizes and heliocentric distances. In particular, the Kelsall model of the zodiacal light emission based on COBE infrared observations is extrapolated to the microwaves with assistance from fits to selected IRAS and Planck data. Furthermore, the five populations of interplanetary meteoroids by Divine and the Interplanetary Meteoroid Engineering Model (IMEM) based on a variety of remote and in situ observations of dust are used in combination with the optical properties of olivine, carbonaceous, and iron spherical particles. The Kelsall model has been accepted by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) community for subtraction of the zodiacal cloud’s foreground emission. We show, however, that the Kelsall model predicts microwave emission from interplanetary dust that is remarkably different from the results obtained by applying the meteoroid engineering models. We make maps and spectra of the microwave emission predicted by all three models assuming different compositions of dust particles. The predictions can be used to look for the emission from interplanetary dust in CMB experiments and to plan new observations.