Sabrina Stierwalt (Occidental): "Merging Dwarf Galaxies: Fueling Hierarchical Assembly"

Both cosmological simulations and observations of the ultraviolet luminosity function suggest dwarf galaxies are the dominant population at high redshifts. However, dwarf-dwarf interactions have not been subject to systematic study, even in the nearby universe. I will report on our efforts to do just that: TiNy Titans is the first systematic study of a sample of nearby, isolated interacting dwarf galaxies. Our results suggest that we cannot simply scale down what we have learned about massive galaxy mergers (i.e. the triggering of starbursts, a central concentration of gas & dust, AGN growth) to explain mergers between low mass galaxies. I will present multiwavelength observations from TiNy Titans that show how dwarf galaxy mergers proceed differently than their massive counterparts, including more extended gas reservoirs, clumpy & distributed star formation, and a presumed lack of AGN fueling. I will also highlight our most recent results investigating the satellite mass function around dwarf hosts, specifically LMC-SMC pair analogs.