Dwarf Galaxies

Search and characterization

A New Milky Way Halo Star Cluster in the Southern Galactic Sky
Balbinot, E.; Santiago, B. X.; da Costa, L.; Maia, M. A. G.; Majewski, S. R.; Nidever, D.; Rocha-Pinto, H. J.; Thomas, D.

Eight New Milky Way Companions Discovered in First-year Dark Energy Survey Data
Bechtol, K.; Drlica-Wagner, A.; Balbinot, E.; Pieres, A.; Simon, J. D.; Yanny, B.; Santiago, B.; Wechsler, R. H.

I think the header image is a great summary of the search for these objects around the Milky Way. In the picture (credit DES) you can see the Eridanus II dwarf galaxy, discovered in early Dark Energy Survey data by me and the excellent people of the Milky Way working group. These objects are extremely sparse and require somewhat advanced search techniques.

Masses and dynamics

Stellar Kinematics and Metallicities in the Ultra-faint Dwarf Galaxy Reticulum II
Simon, J. D.; Drlica-Wagner, A.; Li, T. S.; Nord, B.; Geha, M.; Bechtol, K.; Balbinot, E.; Buckley-Geer, E.

Farthest Neighbor: The Distant Milky Way Satellite Eridanus II
Li, T. S.; Simon, J. D.; Drlica-Wagner, A.; Bechtol, K.; Wang, M. Y.; García-Bellido, J.; Frieman, J.; Marshall, J. L.; James, D. J.et al. with Balbinot, E.

Apart from finding these interesting objects, I also coordinated some of the spectroscopic follow-up efforts, with the main goal of measuring DES dwarfs velocity and metallicity dispersion. On my part, it used FLAMES at VLT