Six More Ultra-Faint Milky Way Companions Discovered in the DECam Local Volume Exploration Survey

Understand

We report the discovery of six ultra-faint Milky Way satellites discovered through matched-filter searches conducted using Dark Energy Camera (DECam) data processed as part of the second data release of the DECam Local Volume Exploration (DELVE) survey.

• Leveraging deep Gemini/GMOS-N imaging (for four candidates) as well as follow-up DECam imaging (for two candidates), we characterize the morphologies and stellar populations of these systems.
• We find that these candidates all share faint absolute magnitudes ($M_{V} \geq -3.2$ mag) and old, metal-poor stellar populations ($\tau > 10$ Gyr, [Fe/H] $< -1.4$ dex).
• Three of these systems are more extended ($r_{1/2} > 15$ pc), while the other three are compact ($r_{1/2} < 10$ pc).