Title: Near field cosmology and the local group of Galaxies
Abstract: Near field cosmology aims at exploiting the high-quality astrophysical
observations of the local Universe for cosmological pourposes.
In recent years, observations Local Group (LG) of galaxies (e.g. relative to
abundance and anisotropy of substructure), have been used to claim
inconsistencies within the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) standard model of
cosmology. However, the comparison between random-phase N-body simulations and
this kind of observations is not straightforward.
Constrained simulations (CSs), i.e. simulations whose output is constrained to
resemble the observable Universe, provide an ideal tool to study these
properties in a controlled environment.
After showing that CSs are able to consistently reproduce the largest objects
in our neighbourhood (local Void, Virgo supercluster); I will introduce the
Local Group Factory numerical pipeline.
This is a tool that allows to produce large samples of simulated LGs
with the correct dynamical and environmental properties, allowing a
statistical study of the simulated Local Universe.
These ensembles can be used to study the connections between the LG properties
and cosmology, using a Bayesian approach to derive distribution functions for
the e.g. mass, velocity and merging history.
To conclude, I will discuss of observations of the LG dynamics can be used to
constrain models beyond Lambda Cold Dark Matter
such as interacting scalar field and F(R) theories.