Ph.D. Candidate:  Elise Darragh-Ford
Research Advisor:  Risa Wechsler

Zoom Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/93309475673

Zoom Password: Email physicsstudentservices@stanford.edu for password.

Just as archeology studies the debris of long dead civilizations to understand human history, so galactic archeology studies the debris of dead galaxies to understand the history of our Milky Way. However, learning about the past from the detritus of the present is never simple. In this talk, I will present several different inquiries into the forces that shape the present-day structure of our galaxy. First, I will discuss the main players – dwarf galaxies – which, though small by galactic standards, have an outsized part to play in the assembly history of the Milky Way. Then, I will go on to highlight the impact they have had on three important components of the galaxy: the stellar disk, the stellar halo, and the dark matter halo.