Collaborative Research: Do We Need Something Beyond Cold Dark Matter?

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The investigators will make measurements of nearby dwarf galaxies and compare them with theoretical simulations to constrain the nature of Dark Matter in the universe. Broader impacts of the work include training of graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher, and engagement of under-represented groups toward careers in science. Visualizations of dark matter simulations will be created for public outreach. The program aims to measure chemical and dynamical structure of stars within the Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal satellites and compare the measurements to simulations, in order to infer the spatial distribution of dark matter in the least luminous galaxies. The observational results will be compared directly to a suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations that resolve actual observables - stellar positions, velocities, metallicities, and ages. The generation of mock observational catalogs from simulations will allow dark matter and galaxy formation models to be compared to data directly in terms of observables. The wider ranging goal of this project is to test the standard cold dark matter cosmological model.