UV/Optical Spectroscopy of Submillimeter Galaxies

Abstract

We summarize the astrophysical properties of the submillimeter galaxy population gleaned from our optical and near-IR spectroscopic surveys of radio-identified SCUBA galaxies. Precise redshift information allows basic evolutionary properties to be measured, but also facilitates a large range of ancilliary science, including clustering and comparisons with the inter-galactic medium, and detection of CO molecular gas. We demonstrate that the rest-frame UV offers rich astrophysical diagnostics both from individual spectra (AGN characterization and wind outflows) and from stacked spectra of SMGs in different classes (UV-bright and faint starbursts, and type 2 AGN).

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