A New Population of Ultra-faint Local Group Galaxies

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Scientific paper

Dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) are the smallest stellar systems showing evidence of substantial dark matter. They are also vivid reminders of the discrepancy between the numerous surviving dark matter subhalos predicted by cold dark matter (CDM) and the relatively few dwarf satellites observed in the Local Group (the "missing satellite" problem). Between 1938 and 1994, nine dSph satellites were discovered around the Milky Way. However, in the past two years alone, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data have yielded eight new dwarf satellites around the Milky Way and two around M31, in a new regime of extremely low luminosities (-7.9 ≤ MV ≤ -3.8) and surface brightnesses (μV > 27 mag arcsec-2). We present here the physical properties of these new galaxies -their sizes, luminosities, morphologies, and abundances, as well as preliminary velocity dispersions and mass estimates -derived from SDSS data and follow-up observations on Subaru, Keck, the AAT and other telescopes, and discuss the implications of these properties for understanding dark matter and galaxy formation on the smallest scales.

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