We take advantage of the sensitivity and resolution of the Herschel Space Observatory at 100 and 160 \mu m to directly image the thermal dust emission and investigate the infrared luminosities ( L _ { IR } ) and dust obscuration of typical star-forming ( L ^ { \ast } ) galaxies at high redshift .
Our sample consists of 146 UV-selected galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts 1.5 \leq z _ { spec } < 2.6 in the GOODS-North field .
Supplemented with deep Very Large Array ( VLA ) and Spitzer imaging , we construct median stacks at the positions of these galaxies at 24 , 100 , and 160 \mu m , and 1.4 GHz .
The comparison between these stacked fluxes and a variety of dust templates and calibrations implies that typical star-forming galaxies with UV luminosities L _ { UV } \gtrsim 10 ^ { 10 } L _ { \odot } at z \sim 2 are luminous infrared galaxies ( LIRGs ) with a median L _ { IR } = ( 2.2 \pm 0.3 ) \times 10 ^ { 11 } L _ { \odot } .
Their median ratio of L _ { IR } to rest-frame 8 \mu m luminosity ( L _ { 8 } ) is L _ { IR } / L _ { 8 } = 8.9 \pm 1.3 and is \approx 80 \% larger than that found for most star-forming galaxies at z \lesssim 2 .
This apparent redshift evolution in the L _ { IR } / L _ { 8 } ratio may be tied to the trend of larger infrared luminosity surface density for z \gtrsim 2 galaxies relative to those at lower redshift .
Typical galaxies at 1.5 \leq z < 2.6 have a median dust obscuration L _ { IR } / L _ { UV } = 7.1 \pm 1.1 , which corresponds to a dust correction factor , required to recover the bolometric star formation rate ( SFR ) from the unobscured UV SFR , of 5.2 \pm 0.6 .
This result is similar to that inferred from previous investigations of the UV , H \alpha , 24 \mu m , radio , and X-ray properties of the same galaxies studied here .
Stacking in bins of UV slope ( \beta ) implies that L ^ { \ast } galaxies with redder spectral slopes are also dustier , and that the correlation between \beta and dustiness is similar to that found for local starburst galaxies .
Hence , the rest-frame \simeq 30 and 50 \mu m fluxes validate on average the use of the local UV attenuation curve to recover the dust attenuation of typical star-forming galaxies at high redshift .
In the simplest interpretation , the agreement between the local and high redshift UV attenuation curves suggests a similarity in the dust production and stellar and dust geometries of starburst galaxies over the last 10 billion years .