Dottorato - PhD thesis
Area Tematica: RSN 1: Galassie e Cosmologia
Referente: Andrea Biviano, (
Titolo: Characterizing the Dark Matter by the dynamical analysis of clusters of galaxies
Decorrenza: 26.05.2025
Descrizione:
The mass density profile rho(r) of cosmological halos carries information about the properties of the Dark Matter (DM) and/or baryonic processes affecting the halo gravitational potential. Cold DM cosmological simulations predict steep inner slopes of rho(r). These predictions have been challenged on the scale of galaxies as well as on the scale of galaxy clusters. By combining rho(r) determinations based on gravitational lensing and the kinematics of tracers of the cluster gravitational potential (stars in the central brightest cluster galaxy and cluster galaxies), the PhD will determine the inner slopes of rho(r) for a set of carefully chosen clusters with excellent photometric and spectroscopic data, following the work already started in the Trieste research group (Sartoris+20; Biviano+23). The final aim is to understand whether the Cold DM paradigm is valid, and in affirmative case, which baryonic processes are responsible for the variance in the inner slope of rho(r) across different clusters.
