We present a spectro-photometric survey of 2522 extragalactic globular clusters (GCs) around twelve early-type galaxies, nine of which have not been published previously. Combining space-based and multi-colour wide field ground-based imaging, with spectra from the Keck DEIMOS instrument, we obtain an average of 160 GC radial velocities per galaxy, with a high velocity precision of ∼ 15 km s −1 per GC. After studying the photometric properties of the GC systems, such as their spatial and colour distributions, we focus on the kinematics of metal-poor (blue) and metal-rich (red) GC subpopulations to an average distance of ∼ 8 effective radii from the galaxy centre.Our results show that for some systems the bimodality in GC colour is also present in GC kinematics. The kinematics of the red GC subpopulations are strongly coupled with the host galaxy stellar kinematics. The blue GC subpopulations are more dominated by random motions, especially in the outer regions, and decoupled from the red GCs. Peculiar GC kinematic profiles are seen in some galaxies: the blue GCs in NGC 821 rotate along the galaxy minor axis, whereas the GC system of the lenticular galaxy NGC 7457 appears to be strongly rotation supported in the outer region.We supplement our galaxy sample with data from the literature and carry out a number of tests to study the kinematic differences between the two GC subpopulations. We confirm that the GC kinematics are coupled with the host galaxy properties and find that the velocity kurtosis and the slope of their velocity dispersion profiles is different between the two GC subpopulations in more massive galaxies.

A critical challenge to the cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm is that there are fewer satellites observed around the Milky Way than found in simulations of dark matter substructure. We show that there is a match between the observed satellite counts corrected by the detection efficiency of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (for luminosities L 340 L) and the number of luminous satellites predicted by CDM, assuming an empirical relation between stellar mass and halo mass. The "missing satellites problem", cast in terms of number counts, is thus solved. We also show that warm dark matter models with a thermal relic mass smaller than 4 keV are in tension with satellite counts, putting pressure on the sterile neutrino interpretation of recent X-ray observations. Importantly, the total number of Milky Way satellites depends sensitively on the spatial distribution of satellites, possibly leading to a "too many satellites" problem. Measurements of completely dark halos below 10 8 M , achievable with substructure lensing and stellar stream perturbations, are the next frontier for tests of CDM.

We present deep imaging of the most distant dwarf discovered by the Dark Energy Survey, Eridanus II (Eri II). Our Magellan/Megacam stellar photometry reaches ∼3 mag deeper than previous work and allows us to confirm the presence of a stellar cluster whose position is consistent with Eri II's center. This makes Eri II, at = -M 7.1 V , the least luminous galaxy known to host a (possibly central) cluster. The cluster is partially resolved, and at = -M 3.5V it accounts for ∼4% of Eri II's luminosity. We derive updated structural parameters for Eri II, which has a half-light radius of ∼280 pc and is elongated (ò ∼ 0.48) at a measured distance of D ∼ 370 kpc. The colormagnitude diagram displays a blue, extended horizontal branch, as well as a less populated red horizontal branch. A central concentration of stars brighter than the old main-sequence turnoff hints at a possible intermediate-age (∼3 Gyr) population; alternatively, these sources could be blue straggler stars. A deep Green Bank Telescope observation of Eri II reveals no associated atomic gas.

We predict the spatial distribution and number of Milky Way dwarf galaxies to be discovered in the DES and LSST surveys, by completeness correcting the observed SDSS dwarf population. We apply most massive in the past, earliest forming, and earliest infall toy models to a set of dark matteronly simulated Milky Way/M31 halo pairs from Exploring the Local Volume In Simulations (ELVIS). The observed spatial distribution of Milky Way dwarfs in the LSST-era will discriminate between the earliest infall and other simplified models for how dwarf galaxies populate dark matter subhalos. Inclusive of all toy models and simulations, at 90% confidence we predict a total of 37-114 L 10 3 L ⊙ dwarfs and 131-782 L 10 3 L ⊙ dwarfs within 300 kpc. These numbers of L 10 3 L ⊙ dwarfs are dramatically lower than previous predictions, owing primarily to our use of updated detection limits and the decreasing number of SDSS dwarfs discovered per sky area. For an effective r limit of 25.8 mag, we predict: 3-13 L 10 3 L ⊙ and 9-99 L 10 3 L ⊙ dwarfs for DES, and 18-53 L 10 3 L ⊙ and 53-307 L 10 3 L ⊙ dwarfs for LSST. These enormous predicted ranges ensure a coming decade of near-field excitement with these next generation surveys.

We report the discovery of the faintest known dwarf galaxy satellite of an LMC stellar-mass host beyond the Local Group, based on deep imaging with Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam. MAD-CASH J074238+652501-dw lies ∼35 kpc in projection from NGC 2403, a dwarf spiral galaxy at D≈3.2 Mpc. This new dwarf has M g = −7.4 ± 0.4 and a half-light radius of 168 ± 70 pc, at the calculated distance of 3.39 ± 0.41 Mpc. The color-magnitude diagram reveals no evidence of young stellar populations, suggesting that MADCASH J074238+652501-dw is an old, metal-poor dwarf similar to low luminosity dwarfs in the Local Group. The lack of either detected HI gas (M HI /L V < 0.69 M ⊙ /L ⊙ , based on Green Bank Telescope observations) or GALEX NUV/FUV flux enhancement is consistent with a lack of young stars. This is the first result from the MADCASH (Magellanic Analog Dwarf Companions And Stellar Halos) survey, which is conducting a census of the stellar substructure and faint satellites in the halos of Local Volume LMC analogs via resolved stellar populations. Models predict a total of ∼4-10 satellites at least as massive as MADCASH J074238+652501-dw around a host with the mass of NGC 2403, with 2-3 within our field of view, slightly more than the one such satellite observed in our footprint.