The Herschel Space Observatory is the European Space Agency's state of the art infrared space telescope launched into space on 14 May 2009, covering the wavelength range from 70-700 microns with 3 instruments SPIRE, PACS and HIFI. Large area surveys are being carried out by Herschel in the AKARI legacy fields at the North and South Ecliptic Poles and the AKARI All-Sky Survey provides additional synergy with the largest survey with Herschel, H-ATLAS, covering more than 500 square degrees. This paper reports on some of the early results of these synergies between Herschel and AKARI including the first comparison of the AKARI All-Sky Survey number counts with the deeper Herschel surveys.

We investigate the mid-infrared (MIR) to far-infrared (FIR) properties of a nearly complete sample of local active galactic nuclei (AGNs) detected in the Swift/Burst Alert telescope (BAT) all-sky hard X-ray (14-195 keV) survey, based on the cross correlation with the infrared survey catalogs of AKARI, IRAS and WISE. Out of 135 non-blazar AGNs in the Swift/BAT 9-month catalog, we obtain the MIR photometric data for 128 sources in either the 9, 12, 18, 22, and $25{\mu}m$ band. We find a good correlation between their hard X-ray and MIR luminosities ranging three orders of magnitude (42 < log λLλ(9,18 μm ) < 45), which is tighter than that with the FIR luminosities at 90 μm . Both X-ray unabsorbed and absorbed AGNs follow the same correlation, implying isotropic infrared emission, as expected in clumpy dust tori models rather than homogeneous ones.

We present the result of systematic AKARI IRC infrared 2.5−5 μm spectroscopy of >100 nearby luminous infrared galaxies, to investigate the energetic roles of starbursts and optically-elusive buried AGNs. Based on (1) the equivalent widths of the 3.3μm PAH emission features, (2) the optical depths of absorption features, and (3) continuum slopes, we can disentangle emission from starbursts and AGNs. We find that the energetic importance of buried AGNs increases with increasing galaxy infrared luminosities, suggesting that the AGN-starburst connections (and thereby possible AGN feedback to host galaxies) are luminosity dependent.

Following the first Public Release of the AKARI Point Source catalogues, we have worked on the production of a new far-infrared All-Sky Diffuse mapping product. In this paper we report first results from the All Sky diffuse maps that will shortly be released to the community, based on analysis of data from the Far Infrared Surveyor ( 65 μm − 160 μm ) instrument. These data are likely to have a strong impact on studies of extended structures, and the diffuse ISM.

Far-infrared observations provide crucial data for the investigation and characterisation of the properties of dusty material in the Interstellar Medium (ISM), since most of its energy is emitted between ~ 100 and 200 μm . We present the first all-sky image from a sensitive all-sky survey using the Japanese AKARI satellite, in the wavelength range 50 − 180 μm . Covering > 99% of the sky in four photometric bands with four filters centred at 65 μm , 90 μm , 140 μm , and 160 μ m wavelengths, this achieved spatial resolutions from 1 to 2 arcmin and a detection limit of < 10 MJy s r − 1 , with absolute and relative photometric accuracies of < 20%. All-sky images of the Galactic dust continuum emission enable astronomers to map the large-scale distribution of the diffuse ISM cirrus, to study its thermal dust temperature, emissivity and column density, and to measure the interaction of the Galactic radiation field and embedded objects with the surrounding ISM. In addition to the point source population of stars, protostars, star-forming regions, and galaxies, the high Galactic latitude sky is shown to be covered with a diffuse filamentary-web of dusty emission that traces the potential sites of high latitude star formation. We show that the temperature of dust particles in thermal equilibrium with the ambient interstellar radiation field can be estimated by using 90 μm , 140 μm , and 160 μm data. The FIR AKARI full-sky maps provide a rich new data set within which astronomers can investigate the distribution of interstellar matter throughout our Galaxy, and beyond.

ASTRO-F /FIS will carry out all sky survey in the wavelength from 50 to 200 μm. At far infrared, stars and galaxies may not be good calibration sources because the IR fluxes could be sensitive to the dust shell of stars and star formation activities of galaxies. On the other hand, asteroids could be good calibration sources at far infrared because of rather simple spectral energy distribution. Recent progresses in thermal models for asteroids enable us to calculate the far infrared flux fairly accurately. We have derived the Bond albedos and diameters for 559 asteroids based on the IRAS and ground based optical data. Using these thermal parameters and standard thermal model, we have calculated the spectral energy distributions of asteroids from 10 to 200 μm. We have found that more than 70% of our sample asteroids have flux errors less than 10% within the context of the best fitting thermal models. In order to assess flux uncertainties due to model parameters, we have computed SEDs by varing external parameters such as emissivity, beaming parameter and phase integral. We have found that about 100 asteroids can be modeled to be better than 5.8% of flux uncertainties. The systematic effects due to uncertainties in phase integral are not so important.