2009/06/23 by Jürg Diemand, Ben Moore · 110 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Cold dark matter #Cosmology #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Dark energy #Dark matter #Dark matter halo #Dwarf galaxy #Dwarf galaxy problem #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Galaxy formation and evolution #Halo #Physics #Scalar field dark matter #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Structure formation #Substructure #Warm dark matter #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1166/asl.2011.1211
published in Advanced Science Letters 4(2), 297-310 (American Scientific Publishers) · Invited Review to appear on Advanced Science Letters (ASL), Special Issue on Computational Astrophysics, edited by Lucio Mayer. Higher quality version available at http://www.ucolick.org/~diemand/vl/publ/dm_dm_minirev.pdf ; movies, images and data at http://www.ucolick.org/~diemand/vl
arxiv created 2009/06/23 · openalex publication_date 2011/02/01 · arxiv updated 2015/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In the standard cosmological model a mysterious cold dark matter (CDM) component dominates the formation of structures. Numerical studies of the formation of CDM halos have produced several robust results that allow unique tests of the hierarchical clustering paradigm. Universal properties of halos, including their mass profiles and substructure properties are roughly consistent with observational data from the scales of dwarf galaxies to galaxy clusters. Resolving the fine grained structure of halos has enabled us to make predictions for ongoing and planned direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments. While simulations of pure CDM halos are now very accurate and in good agreement (recently claimed discrepancies are addressed in detail in this review), we are still unable to make robust, quantitative predictions about galaxy formation and about how the dark matter distribution changes in the process. Whilst discrepancies between observations and simulations have been the subject of much debate in the literature, galaxy formation and evolution needs to be understood in more detail in order to fully test the CDM paradigm. Whatever the true nature of the dark matter particle is, its clustering properties must not be too different from a cold neutralino like particle to maintain all the successes of the model in matching large scale structure data and the global properties of halos which are mostly in good agreement with observations.