Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2013
4.1 Introduction
Our understanding of the cosmological world relies on two fundamental assumptions: (1) The validity of General Relativity, and (2) conservation of matter since the Big Bang. Both assumptions yield the standard cosmological model according to which dark matter structures form first and then accrete baryonic matter that fuels star formation in the emerging galaxies. One important way to test assumption one is to compare the phasespace properties of the nearest galaxies with the expectations of the standard cosmological model.
Although the possibility of the existence of dark matter (DM) was first evoked more than 85 years ago (Einstein, 1921; Oort, 1932; Zwicky, 1933) and has been under heavy theoretical and experimental scrutiny (Bertone et al., 2005) since the discovery of flat galactic rotation curves by Rubin and Ford (1970) and their verification and full establishment by Bosma (1981), the DM particle candidates still elude both direct and indirect detection (Lingenfelter et al., 2009; Latronico and for the Fermi LAT Collaboration, 2009). Indeed, it appears that also the cryogenic dark matter search (CDMS) experiment fails to find significant evidence for the existence of cold dark matter (CDMS II Collaboration et al., 2010). Favored today is dark matter made of non-relativistic (“cold”) particles (cold DM, CDM) as it allows the correct degree of large-scale structure formation. Less-massive particles can perhaps account for the observed structures as long as the particles are not too light, leading to Warm DM (WDM) models, while light, relativistic (“hot”) particles (Hot DM, HDM) are excluded because structures on galactic scales cannot form sufficiently rapidly.
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