Looking Out for the Little Guy: A Comprehensive Study of Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies

Elaad Applebaum, Shodor Education Foundation, Inc.

Usage Details

Though we can model realistic dwarf galaxies, differing star formation recipes yield degenerate results, leaving the specific mechanism of star formation unconstrained. We propose breaking this degeneracy by turning to the regime of ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies, which we have simulated, for the first time, in a cosmological context. Unlike classical dwarfs, different star formation models lead to different numbers, distributions, and formation densities of UFDs. We will therefore tie detailed predictions from these models to upcoming observations. Using cosmological simulations to constrain the detailed physics of star formation is an entirely novel approach, opening a new avenue for studying galaxy evolution and star formation.