Related papers: Quantifying the Detectability of Milky Way Satelli…
The discovery of Ultra-Faint Dwarf (UFD) galaxies in the halo of the Milky Way extends the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function to a few hundred solar luminosities. This extremely low luminosity regime poses a significant challenge…
Dwarf galaxies are ubiquitous throughout the universe and are extremely sensitive to various forms of internal and external feedback. Over the last two decades, the census of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group and beyond has increased…
Ultrafaint dwarf galaxies ($M_\star\lesssim10^{5-6}\,{\rm M}_\odot$) are relics of an early phase of galaxy formation. They contain some of the oldest and most metal-poor stars in the Universe which likely formed before the epoch of…
We derive the structural parameters of the recently discovered very low luminosity Milky Way satellites through a Maximum Likelihood algorithm applied to SDSS data. For each satellite, even when only a few tens of stars are available down…
[Abridged] A specialized data mining algorithm has been developed using wide-field photometry catalogues, enabling systematic and efficient searches for resolved, extremely low surface brightness satellite galaxies in the halo of the Milky…
We present the detection limits of a new survey for resolved low surface brightness satellite galaxies to the Milky Way, based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our survey exploits SDSS's major strengths (multi-color photometry,…
We present early results from a Hubble Space Telescope survey of the ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. These Milky Way satellites were discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and appear to be an extension of the classical dwarf spheroidals to…
The lowest luminosity (L < 10^5 L_sun) Milky Way satellite galaxies represent the extreme lower limit of the galaxy luminosity function. These ultra-faint dwarfs are the oldest, most dark matter-dominated, most metal-poor, and least…
The number and distribution of dwarf satellite galaxies remain a critical test of cold dark matter-dominated structure formation on small scales. Until recently, observational information about galaxy formation on these scales has been…
We investigate the formation and observable properties of faint satellite galaxies (M$_\rm V > -3$) in Milky Way-like halos using the semi-analytic galaxy formation model Galacticus. The ability of the smallest dark matter halos to form…
Among the most stringent constraints on the dark matter annihilation cross section are those derived from observations of dwarf galaxies by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. As current (e.g., Dark Energy Survey, DES) and future (Large…
We report the results of a systematic search for ultra-faint Milky Way satellite galaxies using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and Pan-STARRS1 (PS1). Together, DES and PS1 provide multi-band photometry in optical/near-infrared…
We correct the observed Milky Way satellite luminosity function for luminosity bias using published completeness limits for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR5. Assuming that the spatial distribution of Milky Way satellites tracks the subhalos…
Over the past five years, searches in Sloan Digital Sky Survey data have more than doubled the number of known dwarf satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, and have revealed a population of ultra-faint galaxies with luminosities smaller than…
We combine the six high-resolution Aquarius dark matter simulations with a semi-analytic galaxy formation model to investigate the properties of the satellites of Milky Way-like galaxies. We find good correspondence with the observed…
The dwarf galaxy companions to the Milky Way are unique cosmological laboratories. With luminosities as low as 10^-7 L_MW, they inhabit the lowest mass dark matter halos known to host stars and are presently the most direct tracers of the…
We combine the highest resolution N-body simulation of a $\sim 10^{12}\, M_\odot$ $\Lambda$CDM halo (Aquarius-A) with the {\sc GALFORM} galaxy formation semianalytic model to study the full satellite population expected in a MW-like galaxy.…
We review evidence that the census of Milky Way satellites similar to those known may be incomplete at low latitude due to obscuration and in the outer halo due to a decreasing sensitivity to dwarf satellites with distance. We evaluate the…
The properties of Milky Way satellite galaxies have important implications for galaxy formation, reionization, and the fundamental physics of dark matter. However, the population of Milky Way satellites includes the faintest known galaxies,…
Faint dwarf satellite galaxies are important as tracers of small-scale structure, but remain poorly characterized outside the Local Group, due to the difficulty of identifying them consistently at larger distances. We review a recently…