  We compare the morphologies of a sample of 20 LIRGs from the Great
Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) in the FUV, B, I and H bands, using
the Gini (G) and M20 parameters to quantitatively estimate the distribution and
concentration of flux as a function of wavelength. HST images provide an
average spatial resolution of ~80 pc. While our LIRGs can be reliably
classified as mergers across the entire range of wavelengths studied here,
there is a clear shift toward more negative M20 (more bulge-dominated) and a
less significant decrease in G values at longer wavelengths. We find no
correlation between the derived FUV G-M20 parameters and the global measures of
the IR to FUV flux ratio, IRX. Given the fine resolution in our HST data, this
suggests either that the UV morphology and IRX are correlated on very small
scales, or that the regions emitting the bulk of the IR emission emit almost no
FUV light. We use our multi-wavelength data to simulate how merging LIRGs would
appear from z~0.5-3 in deep optical and near-infrared images such as the HUDF,
and use these simulations to measure the G-M20 at these redshifts. Our
simulations indicate a noticeable decrease in G, which flattens at z >= 2 by as
much as 40%, resulting in mis-classifying our LIRGs as disk-like, even in the
rest-frame FUV. The higher redshift values of M20 for the GOALS sources do not
appear to change more than about 10% from the values at z~0. The change in
G-M20 is caused by the surface brightness dimming of extended tidal features
and asymmetries, and also the decreased spatial resolution which reduced the
number of individual clumps identified. This effect, seen as early as z~0.5,
could easily lead to an underestimate of the number of merging galaxies at
high-redshift in the rest-frame FUV.
