Scientific Rationale
Dwarf galaxies are unique laboratories for studying galaxy formation processes and testing key cosmological predictions.
They are the building blocks of more massive galaxies in the current galaxy formation paradigm, and their relatively
old and metal poor stellar populations give clues to the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
Despite their low masses, their relatively large dark matter fractions allow us to probe the nature of dark matter on
small scales.
Deep photometric and spectroscopic surveys have been key to enhancing our understanding of dwarf galaxies. A large number
of these entities have been discovered in recent years, pushing the boundary of the faintest galaxies we know of and raise
fundamental questions about the formation of first stars and galaxies in the lowest mass dark matter halos. JWST is also
revolutionising the field by providing new data on, and discovery of, the counterparts of these faint objects at higher
redshifts. In the coming years, progress will only accelerate thanks to to various upcoming surveys and datasets, such as the
Rubin Observatory, the Roman Space Telescope, and WEAVE.
On the other hand, theoretical modelling of these galaxies in a cosmological context has been very challenging due to their low mass
and faint luminosities, not to mention their sensitivities to galaxy formation processes. Despite these challenges, both hydrodynamical
simulations and semiempirical + Nbody models have had major advances in recent years allowing more robust predictions for
properties of these objects.
In this conference, we would like to bring together researchers working on various aspects of dwarf galaxy formation and evolution
across cosmic time to discuss the recent progress and key open questions and challenges for the upcoming years. In particular,
we will be covering the following broad areas:
There will be a stellar streams workshop “Streams24: The Theory Edition” the following week (5-9th August) hosted at Durham University. If you are interested,
you can see details here.