RUI: Probing the Extremes of Surface Brightness at the Faint End of the Galaxy Luminosity Function

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Dr Marzke will study dwarf elliptical galaxies and ultracompact dwarf galaxies in 11 galaxy groups and clusters. He, his students and his collaborators will take images of the groups and clusters in the optical and near-infrared to find these faint galaxies. They will then obtain spectra of their candidate dwarf galaxies with a 6.5-meter telescope, to check that they are indeed members of the group or cluster, and in some cases to probe their star-forming histories. Dr Marzke and his team will investigate the effect of galaxy environment: does the number of dwarf galaxies depend on how densely the galaxies are packed together? The study should illuminate the origin of the ultracompact dwarf galaxies. Are they the remains of much larger galaxies from which the outer parts were stripped away? Or are they only small because part of the material that should have fallen in as they grew was instead dragged away by the tidal forces of larger objects? Dr Marzke will collaborate with a group at the Brazilian national observatory on a survey of massive elliptical galaxies, searching for candidate ultracompact dwarfs around these large systems.Undergraduate and master's level students at San Francisco State University will be trained through participating in this research. These students will make observations with a 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak that is operated by a consortium that includes San Francisco State University.