Related papers: Evidence for Substructure in Ursa Minor Dwarf Sphe…

We have measured the orbital parameters of seven close binaries, including six new objects, in a radial velocity survey of 38 objects comprising a hot subdwarf star with orbital periods ranging from ~0.17 to 3 d. One new system, GALEX…

We argue that, at least a fraction of the newly discovered population of ultra-faint dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the Local Group constitute the fossil relic of a once ubiquitous population of dwarf galaxies formed before reionization with…

Prominent in the `Field of Streams' -- the Sloan Digital Sky Survey map of substructure in the Galactic halo -- is an `Orphan Stream' without obvious progenitor. In this numerical study, we show a possible connection between the newly found…

We show that measured velocity dispersions of dwarf spheroidal galaxies from about 4 to 10 km/s are unlikely to be inflated by more than 20% due to the orbital motion of binary stars, and demonstrate that the intrinsic velocity dispersions…

As a part of a project devoted to the study of the Ursa Minor dSph, the star formation history of the galaxy is presented in this paper. The analysis uses wide field photometry, encompassing about 1deg x 1deg (the total covered area being…

A Bayesian approach is presented for detecting and characterising the signal from discrete objects embedded in a diffuse background. The approach centres around the evaluation of the posterior distribution for the parameters of the discrete…

We present Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy of stars in 8 of the newly discovered ultra-faint dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way. We measure the velocity dispersions of Canes Venatici I and II, Ursa Major I and II, Coma Berenices, Hercules, Leo IV…

We derive the star formation history (SFH) and chemical evolution history (CEH) of the Ursa Minor (UMi) dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph). We detect two distinct stellar populations that exist over 6 times half-light radius from its center.…

We have studied the stellar population and internal structure of the core of the Ursa Minor dwarf spheroidal galaxy, using a sample of stars selected to be members based on their proper motions. In agreement with previous studies, we find…

Velocity dispersion measurements of recently discovered Milky Way satellites with $M_V\gtrsim-7$ imply they posses high mass-to-light ratios. The expected velocity dispersions due to their baryonic mass are $\sim0.2$\,km\,s$^{-1}$, but…

I review observational data on the kinematic properties of dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the halo of the Milky Way and beyond. The present data confirm previous claims that these galaxies have unusually large central velocity dispersions.…

We revisit the well known discrepancy between the observed number of Milky Way (MW) dwarf satellite companions and the predicted population of cold dark matter (CDM) sub-halos, in light of the dozen new low luminosity satellites found in…

We report on the discovery of a new Milky Way companion stellar system located at (RA, Dec) = (22h10m43.15s, +14:56:58.8). The discovery was made using the eighth data release of SDSS after applying an automated method to search for…

Ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxies are dominated by dark matter, the distribution of which may be inferred from the kinematics of that galaxy's stellar population. Star-by-star observations are available for the satellite UFD galaxies of the…

We use a particle tagging technique to dynamically populate the N-body Via Lactea II high-resolution simulation with stars. The method is calibrated using the observed luminosity function of Milky Way satellites and the concentration of…

We introduce a new methodology to robustly determine the mass profile, as well as the overall distribution, of Local Group satellite galaxies. Specifically we employ a statistical multilevel modelling technique, Bayesian hierarchical…

We have completed a Monte-Carlo simulation to estimate the effect of binary star orbits on the measured velocity dispersion in dwarf spheroidal galaxies. This paper analyses previous attempts at this calculation, and explains the…

The predicted abundance and properties of the low-mass substructures embedded inside larger dark matter haloes differ sharply among alternative dark matter models. Too small to host galaxies themselves, these subhaloes may still be detected…

We present stellar radial velocity data for the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy obtained using the AF2/WYFFOS instrument combination on the William Herschel Telescope. Our dataset consists of 186 member stars, 159 of which have good quality…

Aims: We study single and binary white dwarfs in the inner halo of the Milky Way in order to learn more about the conditions under which the population of halo stars was born, such as the initial mass function (IMF), the star formation…