ar X iv : a st ro - p h / 02 10 31 6 v 1 1 5 O ct 2 00 2 The SCUBA Local Universe

The SCUBA Local Universe Galaxy Survey (SLUGS) is the first systematic survey of the local universe at submm wavelengths. At 850μm, SCUBA is sensitive to thermal emission from dust at ∼ 10 K and should therefore trace the bulk dust mass, unlike IRAS which was only sensitive to warmer dust (> 30 K) near star-forming regions. So far, we have imaged ∼ 200 objects selected from the IRAS Bright Galaxy Sample (Soifer et al. 1989) and the CfA optical redshift survey (Huchra et al. 1983), and first estimates of the 850μm luminosity and dust mass functions have been produced from the IRAS sample (Dunne et al. 2000). This luminosity function may be biased if a population of submm emitting galaxies exists which are not present in our 60μm flux limited survey. Such a population could consist of galaxies with large amounts of cold dust (< 25 K), which would be strong 850μm sources but very weak at 60μm. We have used 450μm data for 32 bright IRAS galaxies to investigate the presence of cold dust components, and we find that they do exist at ∼ 20 K in even the most luminous IRAS objects (Dunne & Eales 2001). The selection of our optical sample should not be affected by dust temperature, and so provides a way to address the question of whether a ‘cold’ population, whose FIR emission is dominated by this ≤ 20 K component indeed exists. Fig. 1 compares the IRAS/submm colours for the IRAS BGS sample and some of the optically selected galaxies for which we have reduced