Abstract: 
Over the last two decades, large-area photometric surveys have provided deep photometric catalogs of stars in the Milky Way, changing our understanding of the Galactic halo to a much more complex and dynamic structure than the simple ELS monolithic collapse model. The stellar halo is now known to be inhabited by a variety of spatial and kinematic stellar substructures, ranging from stellar clouds and streams to dwarf galaxies, predicted by hierarchical Lambda-CDM models of galaxy formation.  In my talk, I will present the latest discoveries of the halo substructures found in the Dark Energy Survey and the spectroscopic follow-up on the dwarf galaxy candidates. I will also discuss the spectroscopic follow-up observations of the halo substructure candidates found in the Two Micron All Sky Survey. These newly discovered features can provide a more complete census of our Galaxy’s formation history.

Talk Host:  Rahul Kannan