GOODS-Herschel: a population of 24 μm dropout sources at z < 2

Using extremely deep PACS 100- and 160 mu m Herschel data from the GOODS-Herschel program, we identify 21 infrared bright galaxies previously missed in the deepest 24 mu m surveys performed by Spitzer/MIPS. These MIPS dropouts are predominantly found in two redshift bins, centred at z similar to 0.4 and similar to 1.3. Their S-100/S-24 flux density ratios are similar to those of local (ultra-) luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs), whose silicate absorption features at 18 mu m (at z similar to 0.4) and 9.7 mu m (at z similar to 1.3) are shifted into the 24 mu m MIPS band at these redshifts. The high-z sub-sample consists of 11 infrared luminous sources, accounting for similar to 2% of the whole GOODS-Herschel sample and putting strong upper limits on the fraction of LIRGs/ULIRGs at 1.0 < z < 1.7 that are missed by the 24 mu m surveys. We find that a S-100/S-24 > 43 colour cut selects galaxies with a redshift distribution similar to that of the MIPS dropouts and when combined with a second colour cut, S-16/S-8 > 4, isolates sources at 1.0 < z < 1.7. We show that these sources have elevated specific star formation rates (sSFR) compared to main sequence galaxies at these redshifts and are likely to be compact starbursts with moderate/strong 9.7 mu m silicate absorption features in their mid-IR spectra. Herschel data reveal that their infrared luminosities extrapolated from the 24 mu m flux density are underestimated, on average, by a factor of similar to 3. These silicate break galaxies account for 16% (8%) of the ULIRG (LIRG) population in the GOODS fields, indicating a lower limit in their space density of 2.0 x 10(-5) Mpc(-3). Finally, we provide estimates of the fraction of z < 2 MIPS dropout sources as a function of the 24-, 100-, 160-, 250- and 350 mu m sensitivity limits, and conclude that previous predictions of a population of silicate break galaxies missed by the major 24 mu m extragalactic surveys have been overestimated.