TAPIR Seminar

In person: 370 Cahill. To Join via Zoom: 851 0756 7442

Abstract: Dwarf galaxies are powerful probes of the identity of dark matter---one of the biggest outstanding questions in astrophysics today---as they are composed predominantly of dark matter. I present a new suite of EDGE simulations of dwarf galaxies in warm dark matter (WDM), and show how their observable properties are impacted by the slower growth histories halos experience in WDM. In particular, dwarf galaxies are not only less abundant in WDM but are also fainter, implying that constraints based on abundance or luminosity functions may need to be revised to include these baryonic effects. Ultimately, the most powerful constraints may come from jointly constraining multiple dwarf properties affected by dark matter growth histories. I also show how the abundance of the smallest dwarfs that form in EDGE, globular cluster-like dwarf galaxies (GCDs), which are hosted by ~10^7 Msun halos, are impacted by WDM, and how they may provide some of the tightest constraints on dark matter in the era of deep, wide-field surveys.