Alyson Brooks (UW Madison)

Toward the Formation of Realistic Dwarf Galaxies

Low mass dwarf galaxies are ideal places to investigate both the processes governing star formation and the effect of energetic feedback from supernovae due to their shallow potential wells. Significant progress has been made in recent years in forming realistic low mass disk galaxies in fully cosmological simulations. Realistic simulated galaxies are the necessary starting point for interpreting observations in light of galaxy formation theory. Hence, I will highlight new results enabled by these state-of-the-art simulations, focusing on the role of star formation in the creation of dark matter density ``cores'' in galaxies. I will show that the scaling of star formation with mass affects the dark matter density slope, leading to other observable scaling relations in low mass galaxies.