Lonely Galaxies: The Baryon Content of Isolated Dwarf Galaxies

Environment plays a major in role in the evolution of galaxies. This is particularly true of low mass dwarf galaxies where more massive galaxies dramatically affect the local gravitational potential. Isolated galaxies offer a unique test bed for comparisons to theoretical models where the complicating physics of galaxy–galaxy interactions are minimized. For galaxies less massive than M_star < 10^9 M_sun, we have shown that ending star-formation requires the presence of a more massive neighbor. I will discuss follow-up observations to study the gas content in our isolated galaxies and discuss the implications of these results for quenching mechanisms at all scales.

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