A unified theory of star formation remains one of the major unsolved issues in astrophysics. Presented here are the results of multi-molecular lines mapping of the entire giant molecular cloud G333, comprised sites of low- and high-mass star forming regions in various evolution stages of star formation. The result shows the spatial distribution of CS, HCO+, HCN and HNC are similar on large scales, while N2H+ seems to trace preferentially the very densest regions, possibly due to the chemical difference, that N2H+ is sensitive to temperature and readily destroyed by CO. Two analysis methods were used to characterise this large set of data cubes: GAUSSCLUMPS and principal component analysis (PCA). We found the clumps are heavily fragmented with a beam filling factor of ~0.2. We found no correlation between clump radius and line width, contradicts to Larson's Law. Possible explanation is the clumps are fragmented and unresolved with the resolution of Mopra beam, thus the decomposed clump radius is blended and no physical properties can be interpreted. PCA of the velocity dimension found no significant differences among CS, HCO+, HNC and C2H line emissions, suggesting these four molecules are `well-mixed' on large scale, possibly by turbulence. PCA of the integrated emission maps separates molecules into low (13CO and C18O) and high (the rest) density tracers, identifies anti-correlation between HCO+ and N2H+ (due to the depletion of CO). The possibility of removing the scanning patterns of the `on-the-fly' mapping with PCA was also explored. The detection of broad thermal SiO from the massive dense cold core G333.125-0.562, along with other collected transitions, suggesting the core will host massive star formation and the SiO emission arises from shocks associated with an outflow in the cold core. Result of the modelling infall with 3D radiative transfer code using the derived physical parameters have successfully reproduce the line profiles. Recent observation of the 3 and 7 mm continuum emission suggestive of warm dust emission rather than free-free emission from HII, further supports the core is in a very young stage of star formation.

Doctor of Philosophy / We investigate the linear growth and vertical structure of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in weakly ionised, stratified accretion discs. The magnetic field is initially vertical and perturbations have vertical wavevectors only. Solutions are obtained at representative radial locations from the central protostar for different choices of the initial magnetic field strength, sources of ionisation, disc structure and configuration of the conductivity tensor. The MRI is active over a wide range of magnetic field strengths and fluid conditions in low conductivity discs. For the minimum-mass solar nebula model, incorporating cosmic ray and x-ray ionisation and assuming that charges are carried by ions and electrons only, perturbations grow at 1 AU for B < 8G. For a significant subset of these strengths (200mG < B < 5 G), the growth rate is of order the ideal MHD rate (0.75 Omega). Hall conductivity modifies the structure and growth rate of global unstable modes at 1 AU for all magnetic field strengths that support MRI. As a result, at this radius, modes obtained with a full conductivity tensor grow faster and are active over a more extended cross-section of the disc, than perturbations in the ambipolar diffusion limit. For relatively strong fields (e.g. B > 200 mG), ambipolar diffusion alters the envelope shapes of the unstable modes, which peak at an intermediate height, instead of being mostly flat as modes in the Hall limit are in this region of parameter space. Similarly, when cosmic rays are assumed to be excluded from the disc by the winds emitted by the magnetically active protostar, unstable modes grow at this radius for B < 2 G. For strong fields, perturbations exhibit a kink at the height where x-ray ionisation becomes active. Finally, for R = 5 AU (10 AU), unstable modes exist for B < 800 mG (B < 250 mG) and the maximum growth rate is close to the ideal-MHD rate for 20 mG < B < 500 mG (2 mG < B < 50 mG). Similarly, perturbations incorporating Hall conductivity have a higher wavenumber and grow faster than solutions in the ambipolar diffusion limit for B < 100 mG (B < 10 mG). Unstable modes grow even at the midplane for B > 100 mG (B ~ 1 mG), but for weaker fields, a small dead region exists. When a population of 0.1 um grains is assumed to be present, perturbations grow at 10 AU for B < 10 mG. We estimate that the figure for R = 1 AU would be of order 400 mG. We conclude that, despite the low magnetic coupling, the magnetic field is dynamically important for a large range of fluid conditions and field strengths in protostellar discs. An example of such magnetic activity is the generation of MRI unstable modes, which are supported at 1 AU for field strengths up to a few gauss. Hall diffusion largely determines the structure and growth rate of these perturbations for all studied radii. At radii of order 1 AU, in particular, it is crucial to incorporate the full conductivity tensor in the analysis of this instability, and more generally, in studies of the dynamics of astrophysical discs.

In this thesis I discuss probes of small spatial scales around young stars and protostars and around the supermassive black hole at the galactic center. I begin by describing adaptive optics-fed infrared spectroscopic studies of nascent and newborn binary systems. Binary star formation is a significant mode of star formation that could be responsible for the production of a majority of the galactic stellar population. Better characterization of the binary formation mechanism is important for better understanding many facets of astronomy, from proper estimates of the content of unresolved populations, to stellar evolution and feedback, to planet formation. My work revealed episodic accretion onto the more massive component of the pre-main sequence binary system UY Aur. I also showed changes in the accretion onto the less massive component, revealing contradictory indications of the change in accretion rate when considering disk-based and shock-based tracers. I suggested two scenarios to explain the inconsistency. First, increased accretion should alter the disk structure, puffing it up. This change could obscure the accretion shock onto the central star if the disk is highly inclined. Second, if accretion through the disk is impeded before it makes it all the way onto the central star, then increased disk tracers of accretion would not be accompanied by increased shock tracers. In this case mass must be piling up at some radius in the disk, possibly supplying the material for planet formation or a future burst of accretion. My next project focused on characterizing the atmospheres of very low-mass companions to nearby young stars. Whether these objects form in an extension of the binary-star formation mechanism to very low masses or they form via a different process is an open question. Different accretion histories should result in different atmospheric composition, which can be constrained with spectroscopy. I showed that 3-4 μm spectra of a sample of these objects with effective temperatures greater than 1500 K are similar to the spectra of older more massive brown dwarfs at the same temperature, in contrast to objects at 1000 K that exhibit distinct L-band SEDs. The oldest object in my sample of young companions, 50 My old CD-35 2722 B, appears redder than field dwarfs with similar spectral type based on 1-2.5 μm spectra. This could indicate reduced cloud opacity compared to field dwarfs at the same temperature. I also present work to better understand the supermassive blackhole at the center of our Galaxy. Astrometric monitoring of stellar orbits about the blackhole have been used to sketch the gravitational potential, revealing 4 x 10⁶ M_⊙ within a radius of 40 AU. Further constraints on the gravitational potential, and the detection of post-Newtonian effects on the stellar orbits, will require improved astrometric precision. Currently confusion noise in the crowded central cluster limits astrometric precision. Increased spatial resolution can alleviate confusion noise. Dual field phase referencing on large-aperture infrared interferometers provides the sensitivity needed to observe the Galactic center, providing the fastest route to increased spatial resolution. I present simulations of dual-field phase referencing performance with the Keck Interferometer and with the VLTI GRAVITY instrument, to describe the potential contributions each could make to Galactic center stellar astrometry. I demonstrate that the near-future GRAVITY instrument at the VLTI will have a large impact on the ability to precisely track the paths of stars orbiting there, as long as a star with K-band apparent magnitude less than 20 exists within 70 milliarcseconds of the blackhole. Many of the stars orbiting the blackhole are in a post-main sequence wind phase. The wind from these stars is feeding an accretion flow falling onto the blackhole. This flow is radiatively inefficient, producing only 10⁻⁸ times the Eddington limit. Thus our relative proximity to the center of our own Galaxy, provides the opportunity to study a low-luminosity accretion mode that would be difficult or impossible to observe in more remote galaxies. Variable emission from the accretion flow arises from very deep within the flow and could be used to reveal the physics of the accretion process. Characterizing the variability is challenging because all wavelength regimes from radio through X-ray are affected by the process(es) that gives rise to the variations. I report observations of variability at wavelengths that are difficult or challenging to observe from the ground using the SPIRE instrument onboard the Herschel Space Observatory. My work provides the first constraints on the flux of the accretion flow at 250 μm. Variations at 500, 350, and 250 μm observed with Herschel exhibit typical amplitudes similar to the variations observed at 1300 μm from the ground, but the amplitude distribution of flux variations observe with Herschel does not exhibit a tail to large amplitudes that is seen at 1300 μm. This could suggest a connection between large-amplitude mm/submillimeter variations and X-ray activity, since no increased X-ray activity was observed during our Herschel monitoring.

This thesis describes a new approach to the study of high-redshift star-formation and its environments that can be applied to large high-redshift surveys. Instead of relying on spectroscopy or narrow-band photometry to study galaxy line emission in detail, the properties of large emission line galaxy (ELG)populations are estimated from broadband photometry by measuring colour-residuals against colours drawn from a set of line-free stochastic burst models-based on (Bruzual & Charlot, 2003). Simulated star-formation histories drawn from semi-analytic and adaptive-mesh-refinement codes were converted into mock galaxy colours, but neither could-span the range of observed galaxy colours at high redshift. Instead, an existing set of exponentially declining star-formation models with stochastic bursts was used, because it closely spanned the range in observed galaxy colours in the bandsthat were line-free at each redshift. Small colour offsets were measured between the models and the observations, corresponding to the equivalent widths (EWs)of Hα, [OIII] and [OII]. In this way, I measure the rest-frame Equivalent Widths of the Hα, [OIII]and [OII] emission lines as they are redshifted through all filters from CANDELS(near-continuous U to 4.5μm coverage) for a large sample of galaxies from z=0.1up to z=5. This approach relies solely on the line-free models, a set of existing reliable photometric redshifts, and a colour cut (B−K < 2 or equivalent) to select only the dust-free young objects (the majority of identified emission-line galaxies). Once correctly identified, I apply this method to the CANDELS-UDS photometry to characterise the properties of Emission-Line Galaxies (ELGs) through these lines. I find that in this sample the Hα and [OIII] ELG fraction with EW > 150Årises from < 5% at z < 1 up to 40% at z > 2. The co-moving ELG density rises from 5 to 30 ×10 −4 /Mpc −3 at z=2.3. The evolution of median Hα EW with redshift is consistent with results from HiZELS and 3D-HST yielding median EW ∼ M 0.25 (1+z) 1.75 up to z=2.3, from which it departs to values of 450Å atz=4.3. [OIII] remains weaker than Hα for z < 3 and matches its values above that redshift. [OIII] also displays a larger fraction of extreme EWs than Hα. [OII], while correctly identified, never becomes as extreme as the other two lines lines, even when corrected for the evolving continuum. This is evidence of an increasing [OIII]/[OII] ratio with increasing z through-out this sample. While these results agree with spectroscopic and narrow-band surveys, the use of the deeper broadband filter coverage enables a systematic measurement of the increasingly prevalent high EWs ( > 500Å) in galaxies at every redshift spanning the 10 8 to 10 10.5 M range. Subsequently, this method was applied to all the other CANDELS fields (GOODS-South and North, COSMOS and EGS) and further corroborates these results. These results further show that EW dependence on mass is steeper for [OIII] than for Hα. Line EWs are then converted into luminosities for the three lines and fitting formulas are obtained, displaying L Hα ∼(1+z) 3.2 M 0.45−0.6log(1+z), with similar results for the other lines. L Hα is converted into star-formation rate and specific star-formation rate (sSFR). sSFR at low-z aligns approximately with the main sequence (with a steeper dependence in mass), but at high-redshift sSFR remains above the main sequence by a factor of 2 and rising towards medians SFR=100/Gyr around log(M/M )=9, showing a departure of the main sequence of star formation at lower masses log(M/M ) < 9.5. The SFRD of ELGs is 1% at low redshift, but rises to 30% at z=4.5. The L [OIII] /L Hα ratio is used to estimate L [OIII] /L Hβ and the ionization parameter q, for which the median atz > 0.5 stays approximately constant at 10 8 cm/s, and increases with mass. Using the L [OIII] /L [OII] ratio and q, median metallicity is shown to be sub-solar, and can be tentatively estimated for z > 0.5 to be Z/Z ∼0.3. The errors are large, but this could also mean a large range in metallicity from Z to 0.1Z . L [OIII] /L [OII] rises with sSFR as shown in the literature. This method shows great potential to survey emission-line-derived physical quantities for large galaxy populations with a low computational footprint, which could be particularly useful for pixel-by-pixel EW imaging. It is also flexibile, which allows it to be applied to any future deep multi-broadband fields.

abstract: The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has provided the first map of the high energy (~0.01 – 1 PeV) sky in neutrinos. Since neutrinos propagate undeflected, their arrival direction is an important identifier for sources of high energy particle acceleration. Reconstructed arrival directions are consistent with an extragalactic origin, with possibly a galactic component, of the neutrino flux. We present a statistical analysis of positional coincidences of the IceCube neutrinos with known astrophysical objects from several catalogs. For the brightest gamma-ray emitting blazars and for Seyfert galaxies, the numbers of coincidences is consistent with the random, or “null”, distribution. Instead, when considering starburst galaxies with the highest flux in gamma-rays and infrared radiation, up to n = 8 coincidences are found, representing an excess over the ~4 predicted for the null distribution. The probability that this excess is realized in the null case, the p-value, is p = 0.042. This value falls to p = 0.003 for a set of gamma-ray detected starburst galaxies and superbubbles in the galactic neighborhood. Therefore, it is possible that these might account for a subset of IceCube neutrinos. The physical plausibility of such correlation is discussed briefly. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Astrophysics 2015

Les conditions menant à la formation des étoiles massives sont toujours étudiées mais un scénario de leur évolution a été avancé : lors de l’effondrement d’un coeur froid pré-stellaire sous l’effet de la gravité, le milieu se réchauffe et entre ainsi dans la phase de coeur chaud moléculaire (CCM). La proto-étoile centrale en formation accrète de la matière, augmentant sa masse et sa luminosité, et finalement devient suffisamment évoluée pour émettre des photons UV qui irradient l’entourage de l’étoile formant ainsi une région HII hypercompact (HC), puis une région HII ultracompact (UC). À ce stade, une région de photo-dissociation (PDR) se forme entre la région HII et le coeur moléculaire. La composition chimique du milieu nous permet de connaître les processus physiques ayant lieu pendant les différentes phases de la formation des étoiles. De plus, la chimie nous permet également de déterminer le stade de l’évolution d’un objet astrophysique par l’utilisation de codes chimiques incluant l’évolution temporelle de la température et du champ de rayonnement. Jusqu’à présent, peu d’études ont examiné les PDRs internes et cela a été uniquement en présence d’une cavité formée par un écoulement (appelé ici outflow) de matière depuis les pôles de la proto-étoile vers le milieu environnant. La connaissance de ces régions uniques autour des régions HII hypercompact et ultracompact restent donc à approfondir. Ma thèse de doctorat se concentre sur l’évolution spatio-temporelle de la chimie dans les régions HII hypercompact et ultracompact avec des PDRs internes aussi bien que dans les coeurs chauds moléculaires. Le but de cette étude est, premièrement, de comprendre l’impact et les effets sur la chimie du champ de rayonnement, en général très fort dans ces régions. Deuxièmement, le but est d’étudier l’émission de diverses espèces spécifiques aux régions HII HC/UC et de comparer cette émission à celle des CCMs, où le champ de rayonnement UV n’a pas d’influence car il est immédiatement atténué par le milieu. En fin de compte nous voulons déterminer l’âge d’une région donnée en utilisant la chimie associée au transfert radiatif. Pour étudier ces stades transitoires de la formation des étoiles massives, nous utilisons le code astrochimique Saptarsy optimisé et amélioré pendant cette thèse de doctorat. Saptarsy est un code gaz-grain calculant l’évolution spatio-temporelle d’abondances relatives. Il est basé sur l’approche des équations des taux de réactions et utilise le réseau chimique OSU (Université de l’État de l’Ohio) mis à jour. De plus, Saptarsy est couplé au code de transfert radiatif RADMC-3D via un programme, basé sur le langage Python, nommé Pandora. Ceci est fait afin d’obtenir des spectres synthétiques directement comparables avec des observations en utilisant l’évolution spatio-temporelle détaillée des abondances chimiques.En plus de la comparaison entre un modèle de région HII HC/UC avec un modèle de CCM, nous obtenons des modèles pour des tailles différentes de régions HII, pour plusieurs densités au front d’ionisation et pour deux profils de densité. Nous étudions les abondances qui dépendent de manière critique des conditions initiales et nous explorons aussi l’importance de l’émission venant de l’enveloppe pour diverses espèces chimiques. Nous constatons que parmi la douzaine d’espèces que nous avons étudiées seulement quatre d’entre elles sont spécifiques à la phase de région HII ou à la phase de coeur chaud. Ces espèces sont C+ et O pour la première phase et CH3OH et H218O pour la deuxième phase. Cependant, un plus grand nombre d’espèces pourrait être utilisées pour étudier et identifier ces phases. / Conditions leading to the formation of high-mass stars are still under investigation but an evolutionary scenario has been proposed: As a cold pre-stellar core collapses under gravitational force, the medium warms up and enters the hot molecular core (HMC) phase. The forming central proto-star accretes materials, increasing its mass and luminosity and eventually it becomes sufficiently evolved to emit UV photons which irradiate the surrounding environment forming a hyper compact (HC) and then a ultracompact (UC) HII region. At this stage, a very dense and very thin internal photon-dominated region (PDR) forms between the HII region and the molecular core.Information on the chemistry allows to trace the physical processes occurring in these different phases of star formation. Therefore, chemistry also allows the determination of the evolutionary stage of astrophysical objects through the use of chemical models including the time evolution of the temperature and radiation field. So far, few studies have investigated internal PDRs and only in the presence of outflows cavities. Thus, these unique regions around HC/UCHII regions remain to be examined thoroughly.My PhD thesis focuses on the spatio-temporal chemical evolution in HC/UC HII regions with internal PDRs as well as in HMCs. The purpose of this study is first to understand the impact and effects of the radiation field, usually very strong in these regions, on the chemistry. Secondly, the goal is to study the emission of various tracers of HC/UCHII regions and compare it with HMCs models, where the UV radiation field does not impact the region as it is immediately attenuated by the medium. Ultimately we want to determine the age of a given region using chemistry in combination with radiative transfer. To investigate these transient phases of massive star formation, we use the astrochemical code Saptarsy optimized and improved during this PhD thesis. Saptarsy is a gas-grain code computing the spatio-temporal evolution of relative abundances. It is based on the rate equation approach and uses an updated Ohio State University (OSU) chemical network. Moreover, Saptarsy works along with the radiative transfer code RADMC-3D via a Python based program named Pandora. This is done in order to obtain synthetic spectra directly comparable to observations using the detailed spatio-temporal evolution of species abundances.In addition to comparing a HC/UCHII region to a HMC model, we obtain models for different sizes of HII regions, for various densities at the ionization front and for two different density profiles. We investigate the critical dependance of the abundances on the initial conditions and we also explore the importance of the emission coming from the envelope for various species. We find that among the dozen of molecules and atoms we have studied only four of them trace the UC/HCHII region phase or the HMC phase. They are C+ and O for the first and CH3OH and H218O for the second phase. However, more species could be studied to probe and identify these phases.

abstract: This work examines star formation in the debris associated with collisions of dwarf and spiral galaxies. While the spectacular displays of major mergers are famous (e.g., NGC 4038/9, ``The Antennae''), equal mass galaxy mergers are relatively rare compared to minor mergers (mass ratio <0.3) Minor mergers are less energetic than major mergers, but more common in the observable universe and, thus, likely played a pivotal role in the formation of most large galaxies. Centers of mergers host vigorous star formation from high gas density and turbulence and are surveyed over cosmological distances. However, the tidal debris resulting from these mergers have not been well studied. Such regions have large reservoirs of gaseous material that can be used as fuel for subsequent star formation but also have lower gas density. Tracers of star formation at the local and global scale have been examined for three tidal tails in two minor merger systems. These tracers include young star cluster populations, H-alpha, and [CII] emission. The rate of apparent star formation derived from these tracers is compared to the gas available to estimate the star formation efficiency (SFE). The Western tail of NGC 2782 formed isolated star clusters while massive star cluster complexes are found in the UGC 10214 (``The Tadpole'') and Eastern tail of NGC 2782. Due to the lack of both observable CO and [CII] emission, the observed star formation in the Western tail of NGC 2782 may have a low carbon abundance and represent only the first round of local star formation. While the Western tail has a normal SFE, the Eastern tail in the same galaxy has an low observed SFE. In contrast, the Tadpole tidal tail has a high observed star formation rate and a corresponding high SFE. The low SFE observed in the Eastern tail of NGC 2782 may be due to its origin as a splash region where localized gas heating is important. However, the other tails may be tidally formed regions where gravitational compression likely dominates and enhances the local star formation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Astrophysics 2013

We report the discovery and constrain the physical conditions of the interstellar medium of the highest-redshift millimeter-selected dusty star-forming galaxy to date, SPT-S J031132-5823.4 (hereafter SPT0311-58), at z = 6.900 +/- 0.002. SPT0311-58 was discovered via its 1.4 mm thermal dust continuum emission in the South Pole Telescope (SPT)-SZ survey. The spectroscopic redshift was determined through an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 3 mm frequency scan that detected CO(6-5), CO(7-6), and [C I](2-1), and subsequently was confirmed by detections of CO(3-2) with the Australia Telescope Compact Array and[C II] with APEX. We constrain the properties of the ISM in SPT0311-58 with a radiative transfer analysis of the dust continuum photometry and the CO and [C I] line emission. This allows us to determine the gas content without ad hoc assumptions about gas mass scaling factors. SPT0311-58 is extremely massive, with an intrinsic gas mass of M-gas = 3.3 +/- 1.9 x 10(11) M-circle dot. Its large mass and intense star formation is very rare for a source well into the epoch of reionization.

The young moving groups are collections of nearby (<200 pc), young (5-150 Myr) pre-main sequence stars; these stars offer us one of the best opportunities to characterise stellar multiplicity, sub-stellar phenomena, disc evolution and planet formation. Here we present results from a series of multiplicity studies aimed at producing comprehensive multiplicity statistics of the young moving groups. The aim was to compare the derived statistics of the young moving groups to other populations in order to investigate whether the abundance and properties of multiple systems are environment independent. We have combined high-resolution spectroscopy, AO-imaging and direct imaging to identify and characterise multiple systems across a huge range of orbital periods (1- 10e10 day). The observational techniques also allow us to constrain the abundance of multiple systems in these populations by calculating detection limits. We found many similarities (frequency of spectroscopic binaries; frequency, mass-ratio and physical separation of visual binaries) between the young moving groups and both younger and older regions, for multiple systems with physical separations smaller than 1000 au. We did, however, identify a significant number of new wide (>1000 au) companions. We reconciled the apparent excess of wide binary systems, when compared to the field population, by arguing that the wide systems are weakly bound and most likely decaying. By comparing the multiplicity statistics in one particular moving group we showed that the dynamical evolution of non-hierarchical protostars could lead to the population of wide binaries we can observe today. Our results indicate that the majority of low-mass stars form in small groups with 3 or 4 components that undergo significant dynamical evolution. The multiplicity properties of the young nearby moving groups are statistically similar to many other populations, supporting the environment-independent formation of multiple systems.

Understanding the time evolution of the star formation in the Universe is one of the main aims of observational astronomy. Since a significant portion of the UV starlight is being absorbed by dust and re-emitted in the IR, we need to understand both of those regimes to properly describe the cosmic star formation history. In UV, the depth and the resolution of the data permits calculations of the star formation rate densities out to very high redshifts (z ∼ 8 − 9). In IR however, the large beam sizes and the relatively shallow data limits these calculations to z ∼ 2. In this thesis, I explore the SMA and PdBI high-resolution follow-up of 30 bright sources originally selected by AzTEC and LABOCA instruments at 1.1 mm and 870 μm respectively in conjunction with the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey (S2CLS) deep COSMOS and wide UDS maps, where 106 and 283 sources were detected, with the signal-to-noise ratio of > 5 and > 3.5 at 850 μm respectively. I find that the (sub)mm-selected galaxies reside and the mean redshifts of ¯z ≃ 2.5±0.05 with the exception of the brightest sources which seem to lie at higher redshifts (¯z ≃ 3.5 ± 0.2), most likely due to the apparent correlation of the (sub)mm flux with redshift, where brighter sources tend to lie at higher redshifts. Stellar masses, M⋆, and star formation rates, SFRs, were found (M⋆ & 1010M⊙ and SFR & 100M⊙ yr−1) and used to calculate the specific SFRs. I determine that the (sub)mm-selected sources mostly lie on the high-mass end of the star formation ‘main-sequence’ which makes them a high-mass extension of normal star forming galaxies. I also find that the specific SFR slightly evolves at redshifts 2−4, suggesting that the efficiency of the star formation seems to be increasing at these redshifts. Using the S2CLS data, the bolometric IR luminosity functions (IR LFs) were found for a range of redshifts z = 1.2 − 4.2 and the contribution of the SMGs to the total star formation rate density (SFRD) was calculated. The IR LFs were found to evolve out to redshift ∼ 2.5. The star formation activity in the Universe was found to peak at z ≃ 2 followed by a slight decline. Assuming the IR to total SFRD correction found in the literature the SFRD found in this work closely follows the best-fitting function of Madau & Dickinson (2014).