My team and I are interested in near-field cosmology, investigating implications of cosmological models on nearby astrophysical objects, especially galaxy systems ranging from the faintest dwarf galaxies to massive clusters of galaxies. One focus is the study of satellite galaxies, small systems orbiting around larger hosts like the Milky Way. More fundamentally, we are interested in testing the currently leading cosmological model of Cold Dark Matter, in particular in competition with its particle- and modified-gravity-alternatives.
Observationally, we investigate the internal dynamics and infer the mass contents of (dwarf) galaxies. With our international collaborators, we use leading space-based facilities such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gaia mission to measure proper motions of satellite galaxies of the Milky Way and Andromeda, and exploit such data to study their orbital dynamics and phase-space correlations. We also search for dwarf galaxies beyond the Local Group, quantify their properties, and analyze their abundances, distributions and motions.
More fundamentally, we employ such observational data on galaxy dynamics and systems of dwarf galaxies to test cosmological models. This is done by comparing with the results of numerical cosmological simulations that predict the evolution of the universe and the formation of galaxies in representative volumes. This requires careful mock-observations of simulation data and the development of statistically robust metrics to ensure fair comparisons across observations and simulations.
Collaborators at SDU: CP3 Origins
