Kristen McQuinn, Rutgers University: Dwarf Galaxies as Time Machines

Dwarf Galaxies as Time Machines

Abstract:
The smallest galaxies in our Universe encode their history 
in the age of their stars and in the distribution of their 
chemical elements, yielding some of the most precise 
observational constraints on galaxy evolution across 10 
billion years of time. Because they are also the most 
fragile of galaxies – susceptible to both powerful 
internal events like supernovae and external forces 
like the radiation field that pervades space – the 
survivability and present-day properties of dwarfs also
provide unique tests for our theories of cosmology. I 
will describe some of the measurements we can make from 
dwarf galaxies and how these measurements constrain 
our models of galaxy evolution.