Collaborative Research: Searching for Ultra-Faint Galaxies Around the Milky Way

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Dr. Willman, Dr Geha and their team will apply their well-tested algorithms to search for nearby ultra-faint dwarf galaxies in vast regions around the Milky Way. They will use new datasets from large surveys, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Red Sequence Cluster Survey and the Southern Sky Survey. Data are already available from all these except the Southern Sky Survey, which should begin in 2009. The team will improve their algorithms to search for faint dwarf galaxies in new regions of parameter space in size, age and distance. Follow-up observations including both deeper photometry and spectroscopy will measure the mass, metallicity and other fundamental properties of new candidate dwarfs. The work will yield a sample of ultra-faint dwarfs with a broad range of intrinsic properties, in a statistically significant volume around the Milky Way.A postdoctoral researcher and both graduate and undergraduate students will be trained as they participate in this research. Dr. Willman and Dr. Geha will develop and disseminate curricular resources based on this research for classes in Galactic Astronomy at the advanced undergraduate level. The postdoctoral researcher will have the opportunity for a closely mentored undergraduate teaching experience at Haverford College. The team will create a wiki to compile and maintain information on Local Group dwarf galaxies.