Optical/infrared views of the distant universe with ground-based telescopes

Ground-based optical/IR observatories offer access to the rest frame ultraviolet and visible spectral regions of objects with high redshifts. Current observations of high redshift objects with natural seeing of 0.5-1 arcsec include optical/IR photometry and a variety of spectroscopic measurements. These take advantage of the large apertures and efficient instruments of ground-based observatories to obtain high spectral resolution and to reach low surface brightnesses, which is required to overcome cosmological effects. The success of natural guide star adaptive optics systems suggests that observations could become routine with image diameters less than or equal to 0.25 arcsec (and often approaching 0.1 arcsec) over modest fields of view in the IJHK bands. The combination of adaptive optics on 8-10-m class telescopes, versatile arrays of powerful instruments (including multi-slit or integral field unit spectrographs), and airglow suppression schemes will support deeper and more intensive infrared investigations of faint galaxies, and will allow us to take advantage of increased brightness in strong emission lines. This work should lead to a better understanding of selection effects at high redshift, as well as the identification and measurement of internal properties for typical galaxies at early epochs.