Related papers: Triangulum II: Not Especially Dense After All
We measure the first stellar velocity dispersion of the Leo A dwarf galaxy, \sigma = 9.3 +- 1.3 km/s. We derive the velocity dispersion from the radial velocities of ten young B supergiants and two HII regions in the central region of Leo…
The ultra-faint Milky Way satellite Willman 1 (W1; $M_V = -2.6$; $r_{\rm half} \sim27$ pc) was the first stellar over-density found via resolved stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, yet its classification as either a dwarf galaxy or star…
Rapid advance has been made recently in accurate distance measurements for nearby ($D < 11$ Mpc) galaxies based on the magnitude of the tip of red giant branch stars resolved with the Hubble Space Telescope. We use observational properties…
We announce the discovery of the Crater 2 dwarf galaxy, identified in imaging data of the VST ATLAS survey. Given its half-light radius of ~1100 pc, Crater 2 is the fourth largest dwarf in the Milky Way, surpassed only by the LMC, SMC and…
Recent deep photometry of the dwarf spheroidal Ursa Major II's morphology, and spectroscopy of individual stars, have provided a number of new constraints on its properties. With a velocity dispersion $\sim$6 km s$^{-1}$, and under 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 show that subhalos falling into the Milky Way create a flow of tidally-stripped debris particles near the galactic center with characteristic velocity behavior. In the Via Lactea-II N-body simulation, this unvirialized component…
Recent observations of ultra-dwarf galaxy NGC1052-DF2 started an interesting discussion between dark matter hypothesis and modified gravity theories. Reported low velocity dispersion (< 10.5 km/s at 90% confidence level) derived from the…
Dwarf spheroidal galaxy satellites of the Milky Way are prime targets for indirect detection of dark matter with gamma rays due to their proximity, high dark matter content and absence of non-thermal emission processes. Recently, the Dark…
We review most dynamical constraints on the gravitational field of spiral galaxies in general, and of the Milky Way in particular. Such constraints are of prime importance for determining the characteristics of the putative dark matter…
We recently found an ultra diffuse galaxy (UDG) with a half-light radius of R_e = 2.2 kpc and little or no dark matter. The total mass of NGC1052-DF2 was measured from the radial velocities of bright compact objects that are associated with…
VV124 (UGC 4879) is an isolated, dwarf irregular/dwarf spheroidal (dIrr/dSph) transition-type galaxy at a distance of 1.36 Mpc. Previous low-resolution spectroscopy yielded inconsistent radial velocities for different components of the…
This is the second of three papers that search for the predicted stellar cusp around the Milky Way's central black hole, Sagittarius A*, with new data and methods. We aim to infer the distribution of the faintest stellar population…
The discovery of the ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 and its peculiar population of star clusters has raised new questions about the connections between galaxies and dark matter halos at the extremes of galaxy formation. In light of…
We use FIRE-2 zoom simulations of Milky Way size disk galaxies to derive easy-to-use relationships between the observed circular speed of the Galaxy at the Solar location, $v_\mathrm{c}$, and dark matter properties of relevance for direct…
We show that dissipationless LCDM simulations predict that the majority of the most massive subhaloes of the Milky Way are too dense to host any of its bright satellites (L_V > 10^5 L_sun). These dark subhaloes have circular velocities at…
It was recently suggested that, compared to its stellar mass (M*), the central stellar velocity dispersion (sigma*) of a galaxy might be a better indicator for its host dark matter halo mass. Here we test this hypothesis by estimating the…
We conducted a large spectroscopic survey of 336 red giants in the direction of the Leo II dwarf galaxy using Hectochelle on the MMT, and conclude that 175 of them are members based on their radial velocities and surface gravities. Of this…
The NGC 1052 group, and in particular the discovery of two ultra diffuse galaxies with very low internal velocity dispersions, has been the subject of much attention recently. Here we present radial velocities for a sample of 77 globular…
Using the first 25% of DEEP2 Redshift Survey data, we probe the line-of-sight velocity dispersion profile for isolated galaxies with absolute B-band magnitude -22<M_B-5log(h)<-21 at z=0.7-1.0, using satellite galaxies as luminous tracers of…