Title: Searching for Nearby Dwarf Galaxies to Learn about Dark Matter

Abstract:
Dwarf galaxies are abundant in number and rich in their dark components. The observation of these little galaxies can provide solid constraints on the physical properties of dark matter, if we are equipped with two critical ingredients: the ability to efficiently discover nearby dwarf galaxies, and a better understanding of the coevolution between galaxies and their dark matter halos. I will describe recent advances in modeling this galaxy-halo coevolution, and how these models, together with galaxy surveys, can jointly inform us about galaxy formation and dark matter physics. I will then turn the focus to the search for dwarf galaxies, starting with the SAGA Survey, a spectroscopic survey that looks for satellite dwarf galaxies in nearby Milky Way-like systems. I will show how the SAGA results put our own Milky Way in a cosmological context and provide constraints on the galaxy-halo coevolution models. Finally I will discuss how the technique and data from the SAGA Survey can be applied to other dwarf galaxy searches, including an ongoing secondary target program with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), and our future plan for the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Both programs will enable us to identify a much larger population of dwarf galaxies in coming years to reveal the fundamental physics of dark matter.