Intense , compact , star-forming galaxies are rare in the local Universe but ubiquitous at high redshift .
We interpret the 0.1-22 \mu m spectral energy distributions ( SED ) of a sample of 180 galaxies at 0.05 < z < 0.25 selected for extremely high surface densities of inferred star formation in the ultraviolet .
By comparison with well-established stellar population synthesis models we find that our sample comprises young ( \sim 60 - 400 Myrs ) , moderate mass ( \sim 6 \times 10 ^ { 9 } M _ { \odot } ) star-forming galaxies with little dust extinction ( mean stellar continuum extinction E _ { \mathrm { cont } } ( B - V ) \sim 0.1 ) and find star formation rates of a few tens of Solar masses per year .
We use our inferred masses to determine a mean specific star formation rate for this sample of \sim 10 ^ { -9 } yr ^ { -1 } , and compare this to the specific star formation rates in distant Lyman break galaxies ( LBGs ) , and in other low redshift populations .
We conclude that our sample ’ s characteristics overlap significantly with those of the z \sim 5 LBG population , making ours the first local analogue population well tuned to match those high redshift galaxies .
We consider implications for the origin and evolution of early galaxies .