Local Group galaxies in a LambdaCDM Universe

This thesis focuses on the galaxies in the Local Group including the Milky Way and its satellites and the Andromeda galaxy. I start with the analyses of satellites in a dark matter halo presumably similar to that of the Milky Way (Chapter 2). One of the goals is to establish the relation between the dark matter satellites seen in the simulations and the satellites (and especially their dark matter haloes) we see around the Milky Way. For example, do the simulated satellites have similar properties in terms of spatial distribution and kinematics to those of the Milky Way? I then take a further step to combine these dark matter simulations with phenomenological recipes to follow the evolution of the baryons that may be associated to the satellites (Chapter 3). The essential questions that I address here are: why there are only approximately 20 satellites around the Milky Way while many more are predicted in the simulations? What physical processes have affected the satellites and led them to have the variety of properties we observe today? In Chapter 4, I delve into the dynamical properties of the model satellites and compare the mass content in the innermost regions with the recent observational constraints for the Milky Way dwarfs. In Chapter 5, I estimate the masses of the Local Group and the Milky Way using a novel simulation of the Universe.

	Title and contents
	Chapter 1
	Chapter 2
	Hoofdstuk 3
	Chapter 4
	Chapter 5
	Bibliography
	Nederlandse samenvatting
	Summary
	Chinese summary
	Acknowledgements
	Academic activities during the Ph.D.
	Volledige dissertatie

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