Infra-red studies of dwarf galaxies in the Fornax cluster

Dwarf galaxies are the most numerous type of galaxy in the local universe and are extremely important in the understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. A better understanding of the physics of dwarf galaxies is central to several current issues in observational cosmology. For example, simulations of galaxy evolution based on the Cold-Dark-Matter (CDM) model predict far more dwarfs than are observed locally. In the last 20 years there has been a huge amount of interest in the study of dwarf galaxies, partly due to these unanswered puzzles and also because of the improvements in the technology available.