Submillimetre observations of dusty, luminous, high-redshift galaxies

This thesis presents submillimetre (submm) observations using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2) of dusty, luminous, high-redshift galaxies. Submm wavelengths are important because the coldest dust properties can be observed, which can help with the calculation of total infrared (IR) luminosities. Three samples of galaxies are investigated in Chapters 3, 4 and 6. The galaxies in Chapter 3 are selected using the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) with extremely red mid-IR colours. From previous studies these galaxies are a rare population of dusty, hot (60 - 120K), high-redshift 1 < z < 3, hyper-luminous galaxies and are known as hot dust-obscured galaxies (WISE-selected Hot DOGs). The galaxies in Chapter 4 are selected in a comparable method but are also radio-selected. These galaxies with radio emission are thought to have radio-jet dominated feedback. The galaxies from Chapter 3 and 4 are amongst the most luminous galaxies in the Universe and could be undergoing intense AGN-driven feedback. This feedback could be the result of major mergers between two gas-rich galaxies and are thought to be an important mechanism in galaxy evolution. Chapter 5 compares the two samples of galaxies in Chapters 3 and 4 and also their environments. The environments around high-redshift far-IR and mid-IR luminous galaxies appears to be above average. The overdense environments could yield evidence for the nature of their massive dark matter halos and highlight their bias as compared with the underlying dark matter distribution. The galaxies in Chapter 6 were selected in the millimetre (mm) wavelengths using Planck to have dusty spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Submm observations are used to determine if they are candidates for dusty, luminous, high-redshift galaxies and to obtain more accurate positions. Consequently this will help future searches of dusty, luminous, high-redshift galaxies using successive all-sky Planck data releases.