Motivated by recent observational constraints on dust reprocessed emission in star forming galaxies at z∼6 and above we use the very-large cosmological hydrodynamical simulation \bluetides\ to explore predictions for the amount of dust obscured star formation in the early Universe (z>8). \bluetides\ matches current observational constraints on both the UV luminosity function and galaxy stellar mass function and predicts that approximately 90% of the star formation in high-mass (M∗>1010M⊙) galaxies at z=8 is already obscured by dust. The relationship between dust attenuation and stellar mass predicted by \bluetides\ is consistent with that observed at lower redshift. However, observations of several individual objects at z>6 are discrepant with the predictions, though it is possible their uncertainties may have been underestimated. We find that the predicted surface density of z≥8 sub-mm sources is below that accessible to current {\em Herschel}, SCUBA-2, and ALMA sub-mm surveys. However, as ALMA continues to accrue additional surface area the population of z>8 dust-obscured galaxies may become accessible in the near future.
@article{arxiv.1710.01976,
title = {Dust Obscured Star Forming Galaxies in the Early Universe},
author = {Stephen M. Wilkins and Yu Feng and Tiziana Di Matteo and Rupert Croft and Christopher C. Lovell and Peter Thomas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.01976},
year = {2017}
}