Title: Mapping the Dark Matter Distribution of the Milky Way’s Halo
Speaker: Nicolás Garavito Camargo (Maryland)
Abstract:
The Gaia satellite and large-area surveys such as DESI, SDSS-V, H3, and MagE have measured the kinematic structure of the stellar halo of the Milky Way (MW) in unprecedented detail. Accurate distance and velocity measurements of the most distant stars in the Galaxy are revolutionizing our understanding of the MW’s most massive accretion events and its dynamical response to them. In this talk, I will show how the imprint of the ongoing merger with the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) offers a new avenue to measure the distribution and properties of dark matter on galactic scales. I will illustrate how the MW’s response to the LMC’s passage can be used to understand the response of dark matter halos to minor mergers and to reconstruct the orbital histories of MW satellite galaxies and stellar streams. Finally, I will discuss future avenues to measure the MW halo shape in the Vera C.Rubin Observatory era.