Research Division Seminar
Dwarf galaxy stellar haloes

The hierarchical nature of structure formation predicts that haloes grow by the aggregation of several lower-mass "clumps". A natural consequence of this process is the existence of an extended halo of stars surrounding galaxies, which is built up from the debris of destroyed lower mass objects. The nature of these haloes has been studied extensively from Milky Way to cluster-mass systems. However, the stellar haloes of dwarf galaxies have been given relatively little attention.  In this talk, I will discuss recent work using N-body cosmological simulations and empirical galaxy models to study the  build-up of stellar haloes surrounding dwarf galaxies. We find that the galaxy formation model parameters, namely the stellar mass-halo mass relation and the galaxy occupation fraction, strongly influence the stellar mass accreted onto dwarf galaxies. Moreover, the type of dark matter can also be important, as minor mergers are greatly suppressed in warm dark matter models. Finally, I will discuss the observational implications of these results, and the future prospects for constraining small-scale models with observational probes.

 

 

Youtube:

https://youtu.be/61vvPaHQft4