The Local Group dwarf galaxies as a cosmological probe : searches, new discoveries, and comprehensive analysis

Séminaire IPAG de Nicolas Martin (Strasbourg Obs.), jeudi 21 novembre 2013 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

The salience of satellite dwarf galaxies for understanding galaxy formation in a cosmological context has been made all the more evident in the past decade with the discovery of numerous faint Local Group galaxies. These faint systems are not only important to understand the faint end of galaxy formation but also their distribution around their host can test the hierarchical formation induced by the favored cosmological paradigm. I will review our successful effort to mine the two most ambitious surveys of the surroundings of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, Pan-STARRS1 and PAndAS, for numerous new dwarf galaxies. This will lead me to present the initial results of the comprehensive study of the Local Group dwarf galaxies, revealing apparent tension with a naive interpretation of the favored cosmology.