This Thesis presents a study of the nature and evolution of far-infrared (FIR) luminous
galaxies using sources selected at 70 μm from the Spitzer Wide-area InfraRed
Extragalactic (SWIRE) Survey. The SWIRE survey was the largest of the legacy surveys
conducted by the Spitzer Space Telescope covering 49 deg² in six fields. The nature of
the FIR sources was explored by obtaining spectroscopic follow-up observations of 70 μm
sources selected from the SWIRE Lockman Hole (LH) and XMM-LSS fields. The observations
were carried out at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) using the multi-object
spectrograph AF2/WYFFOS. The data were first reduced and calibrated using standard
IRAF routines and redshifts measured by identifying emission and absorption lines. The
data reduction and redshift measurement steps are described in detail. The spectra were
then used to determine the optical and IR properties of 70 μm sources by performing
emission line diagnostic and modelling the multiwavelength spectral energy distribution
(SED) for these objects. The evolution of FIR luminous galaxies is investigated by constructing
70 and 160 μm and total IR (TIR) luminosity functions (LFs) for all 70 and 160
μm sources in SWIRE LH and XMM-LSS with a measured spectroscopic redshift. In this
work the evolution of the 70 μm and TIR LFs was investigated to redshift, z = 1.2, and
the evolution of the 160 μm LF was computed to z = 0.5. The final work, was carried
out by including 70 and 160 μm sources with photometric redshifts and studying the evolution
of FIR luminous galaxies to z = 2 and z = 1.5 respectively. The evolution of the
TIR LF was also determined using the 70 μm sample to z = 2. The work presented in
this Thesis utilises, for the first time, a parametric Bayesian method to study the evolution
of IR galaxies.