Available at arXiv:2311.05676, submitted to MNRAS

Motivation

Dwarf galaxies are interesting probes of the galaxy–halo connection

• Generally, we expect larger dark matter halos to host larger galaxies, a trend captured by the stellar mass–halo mass (SMHM) relation.
• Further, baryonic matter gravitationally influences the halos it sits in. The processes involved in this are collectively called “baryonic feedback.”

Both the SMHM relation and baryonic feedback are uncertain at the dwarf mass scale (i.e., halos with total mass \(\lesssim 10^{11}~\mathrm{M}_\odot\)). This is especially true in the case of satellite galaxies, where tidal evolution from a host halo further pushes the galaxy–halo connection beyond what can be directly probed by isolated, single-halo studies.

Given the importance of understanding the uncertainties involved in galactic modeling, the aims of this work are

1. to infer the halo structure for each of the MW’s classical satellites in order to probe the galaxy–halo connection on small scales,
2. to provide a novel means by which models of baryonic feedback may be constrained, and
3. to demonstrate the galaxy–halo connection as it pertains to satellite galaxies, linking orbital properties to their internal structure.