Related papers: Abell 2744: Too much substructure for Lambda CDM?
We present initial results from ``Via Lactea'', the highest resolution simulation to date of Galactic CDM substructure. It follows the formation of a Milky Way-size halo with Mvir=1.8x10^12 Msun in a WMAP 3-year cosmology, using 234 million…
We present theoretical constraints for the formation of the newly discovered dark star clusters (DSCs) with high mass-to-light (M/L) ratios, from Taylor et al (2015). These compact stellar systems photometrically resemble globular clusters…
The dark energy dominated warm dark matter (WDM) model is a promising alternative cosmological scenario. We explore large-scale structure formation in this paradigm. We do this in two different ways: with the halo model approach and with…
Parametric strong lensing studies of galaxy clusters often display misleading features: group/cluster scale dark matter components without any stellar counterpart, offsets between both components larger than what might be allowed by neither…
According to the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) hierarchical clustering theory of galaxy and large scale structure formation, there should be numerous low mass dark matter haloes present in the Universe today. If these haloes contain sufficient…
It is widely recognized that cold dark matter models predict abundant dark matter substructure in halos of all sizes. Galaxy-galaxy lensing provides a unique opportunity to directly measure the presence and the mass of such substructures in…
Galaxy clusters exhibit regular scaling relations among their bulk properties. These relations establish vital links between halo mass and cluster observables. Precision cosmology studies that depend on these links benefit from a better…
The nature of the elusive dark matter can be probed by comparing the predictions of the cold dark matter framework with the gravitational field of massive galaxy clusters. However, a robust test of dark matter can only be achieved if the…
We compare the structure and kinematics of the 11 known satellites of the Milky Way with high resolution simulations of the formation of its dark halo in a LambdaCDM universe. In contrast to earlier work, we find excellent agreement. The…
The distribution of mass on galaxy cluster scales is an important test of structure formation scenarios, providing constraints on the nature of dark matter itself. Several techniques have been used to probe the mass distributions of…
Numerical simulations have revealed the presence of long-lived substructure in Cold Dark Matter (CDM) halos. These surviving cores of past merger and accretion events vastly outnumber the known satellites of the Milky Way. This finding has…
We have performed the largest ever particle simulation of a Milky Way-sized dark matter halo, and present the most comprehensive convergence study for an individual dark matter halo carried out thus far. We have also simulated a sample of 6…
One possible and natural derivation from the collisionless cold dark matter (CDM) standard cosmological framework is the assumption of the existence of interactions between dark matter (DM) and photons or neutrinos. Such possible…
We present a parametric strong lensing analysis of three massive clusters. Our aim is to probe the inner shape of dark matter haloes, in particular the existence of a core. We adopt the following working hypothesis: any group/cluster scale…
Various laboratory-based experiments are underway attempting to detect dark matter directly. The event rates and detailed signals expected in these experiments depend on the dark matter phase space distribution on sub-milliparsec scales.…
In this work, one shows that a specific non-minimal coupling between the scalar curvature and matter can mimic the dark matter component of galaxy clusters. For this purpose, one assesses the Abell cluster A586, a massive nearby relaxed…
(Abridged) We conduct a series of high-resolution, dissipationless N-body simulations to investigate the cumulative effect of substructure mergers onto thin disk galaxies in the context of the LCDM paradigm of structure formation. Our…
In the CDM scenario, dark matter halos are assembled hierarchically from smaller subunits. A long-standing problem with this picture is that the number of sub-halos predicted by CDM simulations is orders of magnitudes higher than the known…
We have made a comparative study of morphological evolution in simulated DM halos and X-ray brightness distribution, and in optical clusters. Samples of simulated clusters include star formation with supernovae feedback, radiative cooling,…
We perform head-on collision simulations of compact dark matter subhalos using distinct numerical methods for fuzzy dark matter (FDM) and cold dark matter (CDM) models. For FDM, we solve the Schr\"odinger-Poisson equations with a…