UV Emission and Dust Properties of High Redshift Galaxies

Abstract

The high-redshift (z>2) galaxies discovered over the last few years with the Lyman-break technique represent, in number density, a major fraction of the galaxies known in the Local Universe. Thus, understanding the properties and the nature of these high-redshift systems is instrumental to our understanding of the cosmic evolution of galaxies and their stellar content. I briefly review the observed characteristics of the Lyman-break galaxies, relate these galaxies to their most likely low-redshift counterparts, and discuss the implications of dust obscuration on the global properties of the Lyman-break population. Finally, the observational properties of the high-redshift population are set in the framework of a simple evolutionary model for the stellar, metal and dust content of galaxies, to derive the intrinsic star formation history of the Universe.

11 pages, Latex, 6 encapsulated postscript Figures, uses crckapb.sty special macro. Invited talk at the Ringberg Workshop on Ultraluminous Galaxies: Monsters or Babies, held in the Ringberg Castle, Germany, September 20-26, 1998. Proceedings to be published by Kluwer