SpitzerView on the Evolution of Star‐forming Galaxies fromz= 0 toz∼ 3

We use a 24 micron selected sample containing more than 8,000 sources tostudy the evolution of star-forming galaxies in the redshift range from z=0 toz~3. We obtain photometric redshifts for most of the sources in our surveyusing a method based on empirically-built templates spanning from ultravioletto mid-infrared wavelengths. The accuracy of these redshifts is better than 10%for 80% of the sample. The derived redshift distribution of the sourcesdetected by our survey peaks at around z=0.6-1.0 (the location of the peakbeing affected by cosmic variance), and decays monotonically from z~1 to z~3.We have fitted infrared luminosity functions in several redshift bins in therange 01.e11 L_sun) to the total SFR densityincreases steadily from z~0 up to z~2.5, forming at least half of thenewly-born stars by z~1.5. Ultraluminous infrared galaxies (L_TIR>1.e12 L_sun)play a rapidly increasing role for z>~1.3.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in Ap