Digging into High-z Submillimeter Galaxies: a near- and mid-IR view

Highly obscured by dust, a population of high-redshift ultra-luminous
infrared galaxies (ULIRGs; L > 10^12 Lsun) has been identified by their
strong mm and submm emission. Deep follow-up radio observations enabled
the determination of faint counterparts and rest-UV redshifts for a
large number of these submm galaxies (SMGs). These radio-identified
SMGs have been shown to be cold, massive, merging systems undergoing
intense star-formation, yet harboring a rapidly growing SMBH. With Mdyn
~ 10^11 Msun and SFRs ~ 100-1000M/yr, SMGs are likely the progenitors
of todays massive ellipticals. I have led a variety of projects to
unveil the details of the astrophysics at work within SMGs. These
include: (1) a mid-IR spectroscopic study with the state-of-the-art
Spitzer InfraRed Spectrograph that has demonstrated that the bolometric
luminosity of SMGs is dominated by intense starburst activity, even
though X-ray data suggest that ~28-50% (and maybe all) SMGs host an
AGN; (2) a study with Kecks Near-InfraRed SPECtrograph of restframe
optical line emission to obtain dynamical masses and SFRs of SMGs; and
(3) a detailed near-IR 2D spectroscopic study using Kecks OSIRIS to
resolve kpc-scale gas kinematics and with which we have spatially
separated the compact, broad Halpha AGN component (FWHM >1500 km/s)
from the more extended, narrow-line Halpha stellar component 
(FWHM < 500 km/s) in select SMGs.