Deep extragalactic surveys around the ecliptic poles with AKARI (ASTRO-F)

AKARI (formerly ASTRO-F) is an infrared space telescope designed for an all-sky survey at 10-180 μm, and deep pointed surveys of selected areas at 2-180μm. The deep pointed surveys with AKARI will significantly advance our understanding of galaxy evolution, the structure formation of the universe, the nature of buried AGNs, and the cosmic infrared background. We describe here the important characteristics of the AKARI mission, the orbit, and attitude control system, and investigate the optimum survey area based on the updated pre-flight sensitivities of AKARI, taking into account the cirrus confusion noise as well as the surface density of bright stars. The North Ecliptic Pole is concluded to be the best area for 2-26 μm deep surveys, while the low-cirrus noise regions around the South Ecliptic Pole are worth considering for 50-180 μm pointed surveys to high sensitivities limited by the galaxy confusion noise. Current observational plans concerning these pointed surveys are described in detail. Comparing these surveys with deep surveys using the Spitzer Space Telescope, the AKARI deep surveys are particularly unique in respect of their continuous wavelength coverage over the 2-26μm range in broad-band deep imaging, and their slitless spectroscopy mode over the same wavelength range.