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The halo of the Milky Way galaxy hosts multiple dynamically coherent substructures known as stellar streams that are remnants of tidally disrupted systems such as globular clusters (GCs) and dwarf galaxies (DGs). A particular case is that…
We present a brief history of Galactic astrophysics, and explain the origin of halo substructure in the Galaxy. We motivate our study of tidal streams by highlighting the tight constraints that analysis of the trajectories of tidal streams…
Future astrometric satellites, such as SIM (NASA's Space Interferometric Mission) and GAIA (ESA's Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics), hold the promise of mapping out the detailed phase space structure of the Galactic halo…
As the nearest large spiral galaxy, M31 provides a unique opportunity to learn about the structure and evolutionary history of this galaxy type in great detail. Among the many observing programs aimed at M31 are microlensing studies, which…
Stellar streams from globular clusters (GCs) offer constraints on the nature of dark matter and have been used to explore the dark matter halo structure and substructure of our Galaxy. Detection of GC streams in other galaxies would broaden…
How do galaxies move relative to one another? While we can examine the motion of dark matter subhalos around their hosts in simulations of structure formation, determining the orbits of satellites around their parent galaxies from…
Standard cosmology predicts that dwarfs were the first galaxies to be formed in the Universe and that many of them merge afterwards to form bigger galaxies such as the Milky Way. This process would have left behind traces such as tidal…
From $>1000$ orbits of HST imaging, we present deep homogeneous resolved star color-magnitude diagrams that reach the oldest main sequence turnoff and uniformly measured star formation histories (SFHs) of 36 dwarf galaxies ($-6 \ge M_V \ge…
A large, faint nebula was unexpectedly discovered near M31 using narrowband [O III] images. Its apparent size and the lack of a clear counterpart at other wavelengths make it unique and challenging to explain. We aim to determine whether…
We have imaged the extended HI environment of M31 with an unprecedented combination of high resolution and sensitivity. We detect a number of distinct High Velocity Cloud components associated with M31. A sub-set of the features within 30…
We study numerical simulations of satellite galaxy disruption in a potential resembling that of the Milky Way. Our goal is to assess whether a merger origin for the stellar halo would leave observable fossil structure in the phase-space…
We use Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope to investigate the structural and photometric properties of early-type dwarf galaxies and young stellar systems at the center of the M81 Group. We have mapped resolved stars to $\sim2$…
A significant part of the Milky Way (MW) dwarf galaxies orbit within a Vast POlar Structure (VPOS), which is perpendicular to the Galactic disc and whose origin has not yet been identified. It includes the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and…
Slow rotator galaxies are distinct amongst galaxy populations, with simulations suggesting that a mix of minor and major mergers are responsible for their formation. A promising path to resolve outstanding questions on the type of merger…
We use cosmological N-body simulations from the Aquarius Project to study the tidal effects of a dark matter halo on the shape and orientation of its substructure. Although tides are often assumed to enhance asphericity and to stretch…
Nearby stellar streams carry unique information on the dynamical evolution and disruption of stellar systems in the Galaxy, the mass distribution in the disk, and provide unique targets for planet formation and evolution studies. We revisit…
The halo of M31 shows a wealth of substructures that are consistent with satellite accretion. Here we report on kinematic and abundance results from Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy in the calcium triplet region of over 3500 red giant star…
HST-WFPC2 F555W and F814W photometry were obtained for 16 fields of the luminous nearby spiral galaxy M31, sampling the stellar content of the disk and the halo at different distances from the center, from ~ 20 to ~ 150 arcmin (i.e. ~ 4.5…
We measured [Fe/H] and [$\alpha$/Fe] using spectral synthesis of low-resolution stellar spectroscopy for 70 individual red giant branch stars across four fields spanning the outer disk, Giant Stellar Stream (GSS), and inner halo of M31.…
We present deep, wide-field imaging of the M51 system using CWRU's Burrell Schmidt telescope at KPNO to study the faint tidal features that constrain its interaction history. Our images trace M51's tidal morphology down to a limiting…