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Session 62 - Workshop on the Future of Antarctic Astrophysics - II.
Topical, Oral session, Wednesday, June 10
Presidio,
The luminosity function for infrared selected galaxies shows evidence for strong evolution for the most luminous objects. IRAS surveys of the local Universe (z < 0.35) suggest that the co-moving space density of objects with luminosities above 10^12\ L_ødot, increases as (1+z)^6-8 assuming pure number density evolution, similar to the strong evolution observed for optically selected quasars at similar bolometric luminosities and slightly larger redshifts. Such strong evolution, if continued out to redshifts z \sim 1-4 would predict a substantial population of ultraluminous infrared galaxies (i.e. > 10^3 deg^-2) that could be detected in the submillimeter with flux densities > 15 mJy at 450 \mum. Recent deep submillimeter obseravtions with the Submillimeter Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) suggest that such a population of high-z objects exists.