The role of HST in the study of near- and mid-infrared-selected galaxies

Abstract

Because of their unique quality, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data have played an important complementary role in studies of infrared (IR) galaxies conducted with major facilities, as VLT or Spitzer, and will be as well very valuable for future telescopes as Herschel and ALMA. I review here some of the most recent works led by European astronomers on IR galaxies, and discuss the role that HST has had in the study of different IR galaxy populations. I particularly focus the analysis on the GOODS fields, where the multiwavelength data and unique HST coverage have enabled to jointly put constraints on the evolution of star formation activity and stellar-mass growth with cosmic time.