Dynamical Masses for a Complete Census of Local Dwarf Galaxies
Abstract
The 2020s are poised to continue the past two decades of significant advances based on observations of dwarf galaxies in the nearby universe. Upcoming wide-field photometric surveys will probe substantially deeper than previous data sets, pushing the discovery frontier for new dwarf galaxies to fainter magnitudes, lower surface brightnesses, and larger distances. These dwarfs will be compelling targets for testing models of galaxy formation and cosmology, including the properties of dark matter and possible modifications to gravity. However, most of the science that can be extracted from nearby dwarf galaxies relies on spectroscopy with large telescopes. We suggest that maximizing the scientific impact of near-future imaging surveys will require both major spectroscopic surveys on 6-10m telescopes and multiplexed spectroscopy with even larger apertures.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.04743,
title = {Dynamical Masses for a Complete Census of Local Dwarf Galaxies},
author = {Joshua D. Simon and Keith Bechtol and Alex Drlica-Wagner and Marla Geha and Vera Gluscevic and Alex Ji and Evan Kirby and Ting S. Li and Ethan O. Nadler and Andrew B. Pace and Annika Peter and Risa Wechsler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.04743},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
8 pages, 2 figures. Science white paper submitted to the Astro2020 decadal survey