Elves, Dwarfs, and (mini) Monsters

Our Local Group has been a rich testing ground for small-scale predictions of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, along with the impact of reionization and stellar feedback on the evolution of dwarf galaxies. However, we urgently need other samples of satellite systems around MW-mass hosts. I will present results from the Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) survey, that constructs the largest known sample of satellites around Milky Way-like hosts. If time permits, I discuss what we know about black holes in dwarf galaxies, and how their demographics sheds light on the formation of the seeds of supermassive black holes.

Speaker: Jenny Greene, Princeton University