Alexandria Digital Research Library

Testing galaxy formation and the nature of dark matter with satellite galaxies

Author:
Nierenberg, Anna Mercedes
Degree Grantor:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Physics
Degree Supervisor:
Tommaso L. Treu
Place of Publication:
[Santa Barbara, Calif.]
Publisher:
University of California, Santa Barbara
Creation Date:
2014
Issued Date:
2014
Topics:
Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics and Physics, Astrophysics
Keywords:
Dark matter
Satellite galaxies
Subhalos
Galaxy formation
Genres:
Online resources and Dissertations, Academic
Dissertation:
Ph.D.--University of California, Santa Barbara, 2014
Description:

The abundance of low mass halos is one of the key predictions of LCDM, which remains at apparent odds with observations of luminous structure. We present new measurements of the spatial distribution and the cumulative luminosity function of satellite galaxies up to a thousand times fainter than their hosts, as a function of host stellar mass and morphology between redshifts 0.1 and 0.8, using imaging from the GOODS and COSMOS fields in conjunction with a rigorous statistical analysis. We demonstrate how these measurements provide powerful new constraints for abundance matching and cosmological simulations in the context of both warm and cold dark matter, and how future measurements of faint satellite colors using CANDELS, will provide important distinguishing power between warm and cold dark matter models. In addition, we present results from a complementary gravitational lens modeling project in which we use strongly lensed AGN narrow-line emission in order to detect dark matter subhalos, demonstrating a promising new method for measuring the subhalo mass function in thousands of lensed systems which will be discovered in ongoing and future optical surveys.

Physical Description:
1 online resource (218 pages)
Format:
Text
Collection(s):
UCSB electronic theses and dissertations
ARK:
ark:/48907/f3jq0z5t
ISBN:
9781321349894
Catalog System Number:
990045117420203776
Rights:
Inc.icon only.dark In Copyright
Copyright Holder:
Anna Nierenberg
File Description
Access: Public access
Nierenberg_ucsb_0035D_12241.pdf pdf (Portable Document Format)