Deep Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of Large Magellanic Cloud and Milky Way Ultrafaint Dwarfs: A Careful Look into the Magnitude–Size Relation

Abstract

Abstract We present deep Hubble Space Telescope photometry of 10 targets from Treasury Program GO-14734, including six confirmed ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxies, three UFD candidates, and one likely globular cluster. Six of these targets are satellites of, or have interacted with, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We determine their structural parameters using a maximum-likelihood technique. Using our newly derived half-light radius (r h ) and V-band magnitude (M V ) values in addition to literature values for other UFDs, we find that UFDs associated with the LMC do not show any systematic differences from Milky Way UFDs in the magnitude–size plane. Additionally, we convert simulated UFD properties from the literature into the M V –r h observational space to examine the abilities of current dark matter (DM) and baryonic simulations to reproduce observed UFDs. Some of these simulations adopt alternative DM models, thus allowing us to also explore whether the M V –r h plane could be used to constrain the nature of DM. We find no differences in the magnitude–size plane between UFDs simulated with cold, warm, and self-interacting DM, but note that the sample of UFDs simulated with alternative DM models is quite limited at present. As more deep, wide-field survey data become available, we will have further opportunities to discover and characterize these ultrafaint stellar systems and the greater low surface-brightness universe.