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E. L. Wright (UCLA Astronomy)
Observations of galaxies with background limited far infrared single dish instruments in space are confusion limited after short integration times. One way to use this sensitivity is to scan the sky rapidly to survey a large solid angle with short integration times, as is planned by the IRIS experiment on the ASTRO-F satellite. But SPECS will use this sensitivity to perform interferometric observations that will spread the confusing forest in three dimensions: two spatial angles and the redshift. This will allow detailed studies of individual objects at large distances and redshifts. The Guiderdoni et al. model counts flatten to a slope well below Euclidean at \log(N) = 8.7 with N in sources per steradian at a 175 \mum flux of 160 \muJy. But an aperture greater than 10 meters is needed to study sources at this density, so counting out the cosmic infrared background detected by DIRBE will require an interferometer like SPECS.
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