Revealing the hidden supernova population in luminous infrared galaxies

A substantial fraction of star formation (SF) and hence of the core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) in the Universe is hidden behind dust. At higher-z obscured star formation in luminous and ultraluminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs and ULIRGs) actually dominates over SF seen in the UV and optical. These same objects are expected to hide in their nuclear regions large numbers of undetected CCSNe. In this talk I describe our ongoing efforts using near-IR adaptive optics imaging with Gemini-N and VLT to obtain the most complete picture so far of the SN activity in the nuclear regions of local LIRGs. I will summarise what we can learn from the results already obtained.