Galaxy formation and dark matter

Abstract

The challenge of dark matter may be addressed in two ways; by studying the confrontation of structure formation with observation and by direct and indirect searches. In this review, I will focus on those aspects of dark matter that are relevant for understanding galaxy formation, and describe the outlook for detecting the most elusive component, non-baryonic dark matter. Galaxy formation theory is driven by phenomenology and by numerical simulations of dark matter clustering under gravity. Once the complications of star formation are incorporated, the theory becomes so complex that the brute force approach of numerical simulations needs to be supplemented by incorporation of such astrophysical processes as feedback by supernovae and by active galactic nuclei. I present a few semi-analytical perspectives that may shed some insight into the nature of galaxy formation. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.