Are High-Velocity Clouds the Building Blocks of the Local Group?
Brad K. Gibson, Yeshe Fenner, Sarah T. Maddison, Daisuke Kawata
Abstract
Motivated by the apparent order-of-magnitude discrepancy between the observed number of
Local Group satellite galaxies, and that predicted by Lambda-CDM hierarchical clustering
cosmologies, we explore an alternate suggestion - perhaps the missing satellites are not
actually ``missing'', but are instead ``in disguise''. The disguise we consider here is
that of the classical HI High-Velocity Clouds. Is it possible that what have been thought
of traditionally as a ``Galactic'' phenomenon, are actually the building blocks of the Local
Group? We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this hypothesis, and highlight avenues
of future research which may provide an unequivocal resolution to this contentious issue.
smaddison@swin.edu.au
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