INFRARED SURVEYS FROM ANTARCTICA

The very low background observed from Antarctica in a window from abou t 2.25 to 2.45 mu m can be exploited as a way of making deep near-IR s urveys over wide areas of sky. Imaging surveys using the entire window can cover large areas of sky to limits of around K = 20, and can be u sed to study galaxy evolution and to search for high-redshift quasars, dust-obscured quasars and brown dwarfs. It is also possible to make s pectroscopic surveys in this window. The window includes molecular hyd rogen emission and CO absorption in galactic sources, and can also be used to search for emission lines such as Her in high-redshift star-fo rming galaxies.