The build-up of the Milky Way's halo in a cosmological context
Azadeh Fattahi
Durham University, UK
The hierarchical nature of galaxy formation in the standard model of cosmology (LCDM) predicts a diffuse stellar halo component around Milky Way-mass galaxies, formed from the accretion and disruption of dwarf galaxies. Using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, I will compare the properties of these destroyed dwarfs which are the building blocks of Galactic stellar halos, with those of existing satellites. I will show the build up of stellar halos from the accreted dwarfs and will connect these results with recent findings from the Gaia mission related to the major event in the formation history of the Milky Way (Gaia-Enceladus-Sausage). I will discuss whether this event is unusual , and whether it has any implications for dark matter around the solar neighborhood.
I was born in Iran and did my BSc degree in Physics at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. I then moved to the British Columbia of Canada for my MSc and PhD, and got my PhD from University of Victoria in 2017. I moved to Durham University, UK as a postdoctoral fellow. Since 2021, I have been a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and an assistant professor at Durham University.
Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/pcw-gmem-jyi