| Summary: | This thesis presents new deep near-infrared imaging data in one of the most
well studied regions of the sky, the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey's
northern field (GOODS-N). In particular, we have produced a science grade
Ks-band (2.2 μm) source catalogue with a depth of KS(AB) = 23.8
magnitudes. With our K-selected sample, we use the BzK two-colour se
lection criterion to find galaxies lying at redshifts between 1.4 and 2.5. We
investigate the redshift distribution of these BzKs using spectroscopic redshifts
as well as a new photometric redshift catalogue and find respectively,
13% and 14% contamination from low redshift interlopers. We then com
pare the relationship between star formation rate and stellar mass with three
different star formation rate estimators, derived from the rest-frame ultra
violet, mid-infrared and radio properties. We obtain similar relationships
from each of these methods and discuss the inherent uncertainty in estimat
ing high redshift star formation rates. Finally, we test the BzK selection
method with two extreme z~2 galaxy populations. The BzK criterion is
able to select submillimetre galaxies at redshifts from 1.4 to 2.5 even though
they have extreme star formation rates, and it can also effectively select
highly dust obscured galaxies.
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