Abstract
We report the discovery of eight new Milky Way companions in ∼ 1800 deg2 of optical imaging data collected during the first year of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Each system is identified as a statistically significant over-density of individual stars consistent with the expected isochrone and luminosity function of an old and metal-poor stellar population. The objects span a wide range of absolute magnitudes (MV from -2.2 to -7.4 mag), physical sizes (10 - 170 pc), and heliocentric distances (30 - 330 kpc). Based on the low surface brightnesses, large physical sizes, and/or large Galactocentric distances of these objects, several are likely to be new ultra-faint satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and/or Magellanic Clouds. We introduce a likelihood-based algorithm to search for and characterize stellar over-densities, as well as identify stars with high satellite membership probabilities. We also present completeness estimates for detecting ultra-faint galaxies of varying luminosities, sizes, and heliocentric distances in the first-year DES data.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 50 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Volume | 807 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 1 2015 |
Keywords
- Local Group
- galaxies: dwarf
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science