The SAGA Survey: I. Satellite Galaxy Populations Around Eight Milky Way Analogs
Marla Geha (1), Risa H. Wechsler (2), Yao-Yuan Mao (3), Erik J., Tollerud (4), Benjamin Weiner (5), Rebecca Bernstein (6), Ben Hoyle (7),, Sebastian Marchi (8), Phil J. Marshall (2), Ricardo Munoz (8), Yu Lu (6) ((1), Yale, (2) KIPAC/Stanford/SLAC, (3) U Pittsburgh/PITT PACC

TL;DR
The SAGA Survey investigates satellite galaxy populations around Milky Way-like systems, revealing diverse satellite counts and properties that challenge existing models based solely on the Milky Way.
Contribution
This study provides the first detailed satellite luminosity functions for eight Milky Way analogs, highlighting variability and star formation activity in their satellite populations.
Findings
Wide variation in satellite numbers per host (1 to 9).
Most satellites are star-forming (26 of 27).
Observed satellite luminosity functions differ from model predictions.
Abstract
We present the survey strategy and early results of the "Satellites Around Galactic Analogs" (SAGA) Survey. The SAGA Survey's goal is to measure the distribution of satellite galaxies around 100 systems analogous to the Milky Way down to the luminosity of the Leo I dwarf galaxy (). We define a Milky Way analog based on -band luminosity and local environment. Here, we present satellite luminosity functions for 8 Milky Way analog galaxies between 20 to 40 Mpc. These systems have nearly complete spectroscopic coverage of candidate satellites within the projected host virial radius down to using low redshift color criteria. We have discovered a total of 25 new satellite galaxies: 14 new satellite galaxies meet our formal criteria around our complete host systems, plus 11 additional satellites in either incompletely surveyed hosts or below our formal…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Code & Models
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
