Galaxy recycling in clusters of galaxies

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Large galaxies are thought to form by merging smaller dwarf galaxies, but recent discoveries reveal a more violent picture: some dwarf galaxies are torn apart by the gravity of their companions, their contents strewn across inter-galactic space. We will investigate how much this debris is recycled into other galaxies. We will examine Hubble Space Telescope images of dwarf galaxies to test if they are broken up to form the ultra-compact dwarf galaxies we recently discovered. We will model the rate at which dwarf galaxies are disrupted to determine how the dark matter is distributed in such galaxies.