Simulating dwarf galaxies to shed light on dark matter

“Here we see the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy and lots of small clumps of dark matter. That is where the dwarf galaxies exist,” says Fattahi, showing an image on her computer.

Fattahi is a researcher at the Oskar Klein Centre at Stockholm University. There she works on understanding one of the universe’s mysteries – dark matter.

We don’t actually know what most of the matter in the universe, around 80 percent, is. We call it dark matter because it neither emits nor absorbs light.

Although dark matter is invisible to us, we can find the evidence for its existence. Stars and galaxies, for example, would not move as they do if they were not affected by the gravitational force of dark matter.

Providing answers about dark matter

According to current theories, dark matter accumulates in structures called halos. They serve as an invisible framework in which stars and galaxies can form, and every galaxy is embedded in a halo of dark matter.

Fattahi’s research is about understanding dark matter using the universe’s smallest galaxies, dwarf galaxies. These are relatively simple systems and also contain a high proportion of dark matter, so they are important tools for studying the properties of dark matter.

Read full article at the Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation web