Download or read book Simulations of Scale Free Cosmologies for the Small Scale Cold Dark Matter Universe written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cosmological simulations show that dark matter halos contain a wealth of substructure. These subhalos are assumed have a mass distribution that extends down to the smallest mass in the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) hierarchy, which lies below the current resolution limit of simulations. Substructure has important ramifications for indirect dark matter detection experiments as the signal depends sensitively on the small-scale density distribution of dark matter in the Galactic halo. A clumpy halo produces a stronger signal than halos where the density is a smooth function of radius. However, the small-scale Universe presents a daunting challenge for models of structure formation. In the CDM paradigm, structures form in a hierarchical fashion, with small-scale perturbations collapsing first to form halos that then grow via mergers. However, near the bottom of the hierarchy, dark matter structures form nearly simultaneously across a wide range of scales. To explore these small scales, I use a series of simulations of scale-free cosmological models, where the initial density power spectrum is a power-law. I can effectively examine various scales in the Universe by using the index in these artificial cosmologies as a proxy for scale. This approach is not new, but my simulations are larger than previous such simulations by a factor of 3 or more. My results call into question the often made assumption that the subhalo population is scale-free. The subhalo population does depend on the mass of the host. By combining my study with others, I construct a phenomenological model for the subhalo mass function. This model shows that the full subhalo hierarchy does not greatly boost the dark matter annihilation flux of a host halo. Thus, the enhancement of the Galactic halo signature due to substructure can not alone account the observed flux of cosmic rays produced by annihilating dark matter. Finally, I examine the nonlinear power spectrum, which is used to determine cosmological parame.

Download or read book Self interacting Dark Matter in Cosmological Simulations written by Alexander Bastidas Fry and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Self-Interacting Dark Matter is a cosmologically consistent alternative theory to Cold Dark Matter that solves problems of the Cold Dark Matter model on small scales. Our N-body simulations demonstrate that Self-Interacting Dark Matter creates constant density cores that are consistent with observations of Local Group dwarf galaxies. However, the apparent problems of Cold Dark Matter have natural astrophysical contributions from baryonic supernovae feedback. The evidence for Self-Interacting Dark Matter taken together with the evidence for the need for better feedback models presents a challenging environment in which to place constraints on either. We use high resolution cosmological simulations to compare the detailed properties of galaxies at a range of masses with a focus on dwarf galaxies which are the most dark matter dominated galaxies in the universe. We conclude that it is possible that velocity dependent Self-Interacting Dark Matter could explain the common mass scale of dark matter on small scales, the too big to fail problem, and the core versus cusp problem even in the absence of strong stellar feedback; however, baryonic processes offer solutions to these same problems. We find that once baryon physics and outflows are introduced, cores are created in both Self-Interacting Dark Matter and Cold Dark Matter cosmologies.

Download or read book Community Competition and Citizen Science written by Anne Holohan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voluntary distributed computing projects divide large computational tasks into small pieces of data or work that are sent out over the Internet to be processed by individual users, who participate voluntarily in order to provide solutions that would ordinarily require investments of millions of dollars. This approach is contributing to the transformation of computationally heavy scientific research, opening up participation in science to interested lay people and greatly reducing the cost-barriers to computation for financially challenged researchers. Drawing on face-to-face and online ethnographic, survey and interview data with participants in distributed computing projects around the world, this book sheds light on the organizational and social structures of voluntary distributed computing projects, communities and teams, with close attention to questions of motivation in projects that offer little or no traditional forms of reward, either financially or in terms of participants' careers. With its focus on non-market, non-hierarchical cooperation, this book is a case study of networked individuals around the world who are part of a new social production of information. A rich study of the transformative potential inherent in globalization and connectedness, Community, Competition and Citizen Science will appeal to sociologists and political scientists with interests in globalization, networks and science and technology studies, together with scholars and students of media and communication and those working in relevant fields of computing, information systems and scientific collaboration.

Download or read book Probing Local Group Galactic Substructure with Cosmological Simulations written by Gregory Alan Dooley and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lambda cold dark matter (ACDM) model is enormously successful at predicting large scale structure in the Universe. However, some tensions still remain on small scales, specifically regarding observed satellites of the Milky Way (MW) and Andromeda. Foremost among the problems have been the missing satellite, too big to fail, and cusp/core problems, which concern the expected abundance of satellites and their inner structure. This Ph.D. thesis consists of a series of studies using dark matter only cosmological N-body simulations of MW-mass galaxies to address topics related to these issues. In light of the recent Planck mission, I investigate how changes to cosmological parameters affect dark matter halo substructure. I find that the process of continuous sub-halo accretion and destruction leads to a steady state description of most subhalo properties in a given host, unchanged by small fluctuations in cosmological parameters. Subhalo concentration, maximum circular velocity, and formation times, however, are somewhat affected. One way to reduce the central density of satellites, as needed to solve the cusp/core and too big to fail problems, is through self-interacting dark matter (SIDM). I search for new implications of SIDM and find that stars in satellites spread out to larger radii and are tidally stripped at a higher rate in SIDM than CDM, even though the mass loss rate of dark matter is unchanged. These signatures should be particularly prominent in ultrafaint dwarf galaxies for the class of otherwise difficult to constrain velocity-dependent SIDM models. I also helped carry out the Caterpillar project, a suite of 36 high mass resolution (~ 10' Mo/particle) simulations of MW-like galaxies used to study diversity in halo substructure. To these, I apply abundance matching and reionization models to make novel predictions about the abundance of satellites in isolated dwarf galaxies out to 8 Mpc to help guide future searches. Applying the same techniques to predict satellites within 50 kpc of the LMC, I discover large discrepancies with the observed stellar mass function, which may lead to new constraints on the galaxy stellar mass-halo mass relationship, and the ability of reionization to leave dark matter halos entirely dark.

Download or read book Simulations of Structure Formation in the Universe written by Carlos Chover Lopez and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last century, new observational techniques and discoveries such as the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation have brought a new dimension of knowledge about the Universe. Therefore new theories and models have been proposed to explain the observed Universe. Computer simulations are a very important tool because they lay a bridge between theory, often over-simpli ed, and observations, which reveal the complexity of our Universe. In this thesis, it is given a review of observations including the most important discoveries and results that help to describe the Universe and have been used to develop the models considered nowadays. The cosmological theory behind the large-scale structure formation is explained, from the basis of the Friedman model to the formation of structures through the linear, quasi-linear and non-linear regime, including the Zeldovich approximation and the spherical collapse model. Furthermore, the di erent types of codes used for cosmological simulations are introduced, focusing on the N-body codes and presenting the code used in this thesis, developed by Klypin & Holtzman (1997). The tools used to analyse the results: density plots, power spectrum and mass variance are described as well. Three main sets of simulations have been performed: a basic simulation (RUN0) with standard cosmological parameters, simulations of CDM and simulations of Hot+Cold Dark Matter (HCDM). All the simulations use 323 particles, while di erent cosmological parameters have been changed e.g. 8, m, and n. Thus, it is observed that higher values of m and low values of lead to more clustering and hence more developed structures. Moreover, the e ect of 8 appears to be critical, since it determines the amplitude of the density uctuations at the initial redshift of the simulation. When studying the presence of hot dark matter, the main di erence comes from the cut-o in the power spectrum due to the hot dark matter free-streaming, resulting in less developed structures. Similarly to the previous case, the e ects of the cosmological parameters are explained for this model. Finally, some additional simulations regarding dark halos populations and density pro- les are included in the Appendix.

Download or read book Dark Matter in Cosmology Quantum Measurements Experimental Gravitation written by R. Ansari and published by Atlantica Séguier Frontières. This book was released on 1996 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Scalable Parallel Simulation of Small scale Structures in Cold Dark Matter written by Alexander Victorovich Shirokov and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Cont.) It is shown in this thesis that inhomogeneous distribution of dark matter on small scales significantly changes the predicted event rates in direct detection dark matter experiments. The effect of spatial inhomogeneity weakens the upper limits on neutralino cross section produced in the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Experiment.

Download or read book Constraining Dark Matter Physics with Cosmological Simulations written by Oliver D. Elbert and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dark Matter (DM) accounts for the vast majority of mass in the universe, but the particle identity of dark matter remains a mystery. Uncovering the fundamental nature of DM remains one of the greatest challenges facing modern physics. Because the only information about DM comes from astrophysical observations, these are the best sources to constrain models. Dwarf galaxies present an especially tantalizing regime to investigate dark physics, as they have the highest ratio of dark to luminous matter and therefore will be most affected by differences between DM models. Additionally, this is precisely the scale where generic dark matter theories have the most difficulty reproducing astronomical observations, leading to the missing satellites, core-cusp and too-big-to-fail (TBTF) problems.A particular class of models with nuclear scale self-interactions (called SIDM) has emerged as a promising candidate. SIDM naturally forms cored halos, which may alleviate both the core-cusp and TBTF problems. However, at larger scales the the interplay between SIDM halos and the galaxies residing in them is poorly understood, complicating this picture greatly. In this thesis I present numerical simulations of SIDM and CDM halos investigating these issues. I show that at dwarf scales SIDM cross sections as small as 0.5cm2 g--1 solve the TBTF and core-cusp problems, and that cross sections 2 orders of magnitude larger are not ruled out. I have also embedded gravitational potentials that approximate realistic galaxies in simulations of larger haloes in order to test the impact of galaxy formation on SIDM halos. These simulations show that SIDM is indistinguishable from CDM in systems where the galaxy dominates the central region, but in galaxies with higher mass-to-light ratios or less centrally concentrated baryons it is possible to constrain SIDM cross sections. In the galaxy cluster regime I show that an SIDM cross section of $0.1-0.2 cm2 g --1 is preferred to CDM or other SIDM cross sections.

Download or read book Simulations of Dark Energy Cosmologies written by Elise Jennings and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-05-27 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major outstanding problem in physics is understanding the nature of the dark energy that is driving the accelerating expansion of the Universe. This thesis makes a significant contribution by demonstrating, for the first time, using state-of-the-art computer simulations, that the interpretation of future galaxy survey measurements is far more subtle than is widely assumed, and that a major revision to our models of these effects is urgently needed. The work contained in the thesis was used by the WiggleZ dark energy survey to measure the growth rate of cosmic structure in 2011 and had a direct impact on the design of the surveys to be conducted by the European Space Agency's Euclid mission, a 650 million euro project to measure dark energy.

Download or read book Formation of Galactic Halos in the Cold Dark Matter Universe written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The formation of structure on the galactic scale in the cold dark matter, .cap omega. = 1 universe is simulated.

Download or read book Formation of Structure in the Universe written by Avishai Dekel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-04-15 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This advanced textbook provides an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the very active field of structure formation in cosmology. It is written by eleven world-leading authorities. Written in a clear and pedagogical style appropriate for graduate students in astronomy and physics, this textbook introduces the reader to a wide range of exciting topics in contemporary cosmology: from recent advances in redshift surveys, to the latest models in gravitational lensing and cosmological simulations. The authors are all world-renowned experts both for their research and teaching skills. In the fast-moving field of structure formation, this book provides advanced undergraduate and graduate students with a welcome textbook which unites the latest theory and observations.

Download or read book SPHerical written by Reuben David Blaff and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cold dark matter (CDM) cosmological N-body simulations have proved to be powerful tools for studying the evolution and structure of the universe. These simulations, however, predict certain small-scale structure that disagrees with observation. They are also computationally expensive. Thus, the majority of efforts have focused upon the vanilla CDM model. There are, however, a variety of DM models beyond CDM, such as self-interacting dark matter (SIDM), which has shown promise in resolving some of the aforementioned small-scale structure problems. Our new Python package, SPHerical, which we present in this paper, aims to allow for further exploration of SIDM and other alternative DM models. The package is used to simulate the evolution of isolated spherically symmetric DM halos using a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) framework and gravothermal fluid model. In this paper, we limit our scope to SIDM and compare SPHerical's results with those of similar simulations.

Download or read book Gravitational Dynamics of Halo Formation in a Collisional Versus Collisionless Cold Dark Matter Universe written by Jun Koda and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flat cosmology with collisionless cold dark matter (CDM) and cosmological constant ([Lambda]CDM cosmology) may have some problems on small scales, even though it has been very successful on large scales. We study the effect of Self-Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM) hypothesis on the density profiles of halos. Collisionless CDM predicts cuspy density profiles toward the center, while observations of low mass galaxies prefer cored profiles. SIDM was proposed by Spergel & Steinhardt [161] as a possible solution to this cuspy profile problem on low-mass scales. On the other hand, observations and collisionless CDM agree on mass scales of galaxy clusters. It is also known that the SIDM hypothesis would contradict with X-ray and gravitational lensing observations of cluster of galaxies, if the cross section were too large. Our final goal is to find the range of SIDM scattering cross section models that are consistent with those astrophysical observations in two different mass scales. There are two theoretical approaches to compute the effect of self-interacting scattering -- Gravitational N-body simulation with Monte Carlo scattering and conducting fluid model; those two approaches, however, had not been confirmed to agree with each other. We first show that two methods are in reasonable agreement with each other for both isolated halos and for halos with realistic mass assembly history in an expanding [Lambda]CDM universe; the value of cross section necessary to have a maximally relaxed low-density core in [Lambda]CDM is in mutual agreement. We then develop a semianalytic model that predicts the time evolution of SIDM halo. Our semianalytic relaxation model enables us to understand how a SIDM halo would relax to a cored profile, and obtain an ensemble of SIDM halos from collisionless simulations with reasonable computational resources. We apply the semianalytic relaxation model to CDM halos, and compare the resulting statistical distribution of SIDM halos with astrophysical observations. We show that there exists a range of scattering cross sections that simultaneously solve the cuspy core problem on low-mass scales and satisfy the galaxy cluster observations. We also present that other potential conflicts between [Lambda]CDM and observations could be resolved in Part II and III.

Download or read book Treknology written by Ethan Siegel and published by Voyageur Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Be amazed by 25 iconic pieces of tech from the Star Trek canon and the science behind how they function with Treknology. You will not believe how close we are to achieving some of them today. The name Star Trek conjures images of faster-than-light spacecraft, holographic crew members, and phasers set to stun. Some of these incredible devices may still be far from our reach, but others have made the leap from science fiction to science fact—and now you can learn the science and engineering of what makes them tick. Treknology looks at over twenty-five iconic inventions from the complete history of the Star Trek television and film universe. Author Ethan Siegel explores and profiles these dazzling technologies and their role Star Trek, the science behind how they work, and how close we are to achieving them in the real world today. This stunning collection is packed with 150 superbfilm and television stills, prop photography, and scientific diagrams to pull you into another world. Brace yourself for a detailed look at the inner workings of Star Trek’s computing capabilities, communications equipment, medical devices, and awe-inspiring ships. Treknology is one that no fan of Star Trek, or future tech, will want to miss.

Download or read book Dynamical Mass Modeling of Dispersion supported Dwarf Galaxies written by Joseph Wolf and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The currently favored cold dark matter cosmology (LCDM) has had much success in reproducing the large scale structure of the universe. However, on smaller scales there are some possible discrepancies when attempting to match galactic observations with properties of halos in dissipationless LCDM simulations. One advantageous method to test small scale simulations with observations is through dynamical mass modeling of nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). The stellar tracers of dSphs are dispersion-supported, which poses a significant challenge in accurately deriving mass profiles. Unlike rotationally-supported galaxies, the dynamics of which can be well-approximated by one-dimensional physics, modeling dispersion-supported systems given only line-of-sight data results in a well-known degeneracy between the mass profile and the velocity dispersion anisotropy. The core of this dissertation is rooted in a new advancement which we have discovered: the range of solutions allowed by the mass-anisotropy degeneracy varies as a function of radius, with a considerable minimal near the deprojected half-light radius of almost all observed dispersion-supported galaxies. This finding allows for a wide range of applications in galaxy formation scenarios to be explored in an attempt to address, amongst other hypotheses, whether the LCDM framework needs to be modified in order to reproduce observations on the small scale. This thesis is comprised of both the derivation of this finding, and its applicability to all dispersion-supported systems, ranging from dwarfs galaxies consisting of a few hundred stars to systems of 'intracluster light', containing over a trillion stars. Rarely does one have the privilege of working with systems that span such a large range in luminosity (or any intrinsic property) in a short graduate career. Although the large applicability of this scale-free finding allows for discussion in many subfields, this thesis will mainly focus on one topic: dwarf galaxies of the Local Group.

Download or read book The Local Group and Its Dwarf Galaxy Members in the Standard Model of Cosmology written by Azadeh Fattahi and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to the current cosmological paradigm, ``Lambda Cold Dark Matter'' (LambdaCDM), only ~20% of the gravitating matter in the universe is made up of ordinary (i.e. baryonic) matter, while the rest consists of invisible dark matter (DM) particles, which existence can be inferred from their gravitational influence on baryonic matter and light. Despite the large success of the LambdaCDM model in explaining the large scale structure of the Universe and the conditions of the early Universe, there has been debate on whether this model can fully explain the observations of low mass (dwarf) galaxies. The Local Group (LG), which hosts most of the known dwarf galaxies, is a unique laboratory to test the predictions of the LambdaCDM model on small scales. I analyze the kinematics of LG members, including the Milky~Way-Andromeda (MW-M31) pair and dwarf galaxies, in order to constrain the mass of the LG. I construct samples of LG analogs from large cosmological N-body simulations, according to the following kinematics constraints: (a) the separation and relative velocity of the MW-M31 pair; (b) the receding velocity of dwarf galaxies in the outskirts of the LG. I find that these constraints yield a median total mass of 2*10^#x12; solar masses for the MW and M31, but with a large uncertainty. Based on the mass and the kinematics constraints, I select twelve LG candidates for the APOSTLE simulations project. The APOSTLE project consists of high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the LG candidates, using the EAGLE galaxy formation model. I show that dwarf satellites of MW and M31 analogs in APOSTLE are in good agreement with observations, in terms of number, luminosity and kinematics. There have been tensions between the observed masses of LG dwarf spheroidals and the predictions of N-body simulations within the LambdaCDM framework; simulations tend to over-predict the mass of dwarfs. This problem is known as the ``too-big-to-fail'' problem. I find that the enclosed mass within the half-light radii of Galactic classical dwarf spheroidals, is in excellent agreement with the simulated satellites in APOSTLE, and that there is no too-big-to-fail problem in APOSTLE simulations. A few factors contribute in solving the problem: (a) the mass of haloes in hydrodynamical simulations are lower compared to their N-body counterparts; (b) stellar mass-halo mass relation in APOSTLE is different than the ones used to argue for the too-big-to-fail problem; (c) number of massive satellites correlates with the virial mass of the host, i.e. MW analogs with virial masses above ~ 3*10^#x12; solar masses would have faced too-big-to-fail problems; (d) uncertainties in observations were underestimated in previous works. Stellar mass-halo mass relation in APOSTLE predicts that all isolated dwarf galaxies should live in haloes with maximum circular velocity (V_max) above 20 km/s. Satellite galaxies, however, can inhabit lower mass haloes due to tidal stripping which removes mass from the inner regions of satellites as they orbit their hosts. I examine all satellites of the MW and M31, and find that many of them live in haloes less massive than V_max=20 km/s. I additionally show that the low mass population is following a different trend in stellar mass-size relation compared to the rest of the satellites or field dwarfs. I use stellar mass-halo mass relation of APOSTLE field galaxies, along with tidal stripping trajectories derived in Penarrubia et al., in order to predict the properties of the progenitors of the LG satellites. According to this prediction, some satellites have lost a significant amount of dark matter as well as stellar mass. Cra~II, And~XIX, XXI, and XXV have lost 99 per-cent of their stellar mass in the past. I show that the mass discrepancy-acceleration relation of dwarf galaxies in the LG is at odds with MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) predictions, whereas tidal stripping can explain the observations very well. I compare observed velocity dispersion of LG satellites with the predicted values by MOND. The observations and MOND predictions are inconsistent, in particular in the regime of ultra faint dwarf galaxies.

Download or read book Probabilistic Inference of Dark Matter Properties in Galaxy Clusters and the Cosmic Web written by Yin-Yee Ng and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mass tells spacetime how to curve, spacetime tells mass how to move". This famous quote by physicist John Archibald Wheeler succinctly summarizes General Relativity, the most successful theory that describes our universe at large scale. However, most of the mass that General Relativity describes, namely dark matter (DM), remains a mystery. We have solid evidence of the existence of DM from various observations, but we know little or nothing about the particle nature of DM and how DM particles interact with different particles. Completing this knowledge gap would improve or revolutionize our established cosmological model, the Lambda Cold-Dark Matter (CDM) model, and give directions to theories beyond the standard particle physics model.This work attempts to study DM by examining and extending existing modeling approaches of DM and its visible tracers in a probabilistic way. The single verified form of DM interaction is gravitational. Currently, the only way to infer the properties of DM is through visible tracers. Most of these indirect detections either have low signal-to-noise, sparse coverage, or missing variables. These limitations introduce additional modeling choices and uncertainties. A probabilistic approach allows us to propagate the uncertainties appropriately and marginalize any missing variables. There are two recurring types of visible tracers that my work uses. The first type of tracers are galaxies and observables in the overdense regions of DM. These tracers allow usto infer the macroscopic dynamical properties of DM distribution that we want to study. The second type of tracers, on the hand, are in the background, i.e. further away than the foreground dark matter, from us observers. The gravity of DM can bend spacetime such that the path of light traveling in the vicinity would also curve, leaving distortions in the galaxy images. The gravitational distortion of the images of the background galaxies is also known as gravitational lensing. In the introduction (first chapter) of this thesis, I will layout the technical history, terminology and the reasons behind choosing the various data sets and give an overview of the analysis methods for my thesis work. In chapter two, I will present the study based on the observational data of El Gordo, one of the most massive, most ancient, merging galaxy clusters. Under the extreme collision speeds during a merger of a galaxy cluster, it is more probable for DM particles in the cluster to manifest eects of self-interaction. Thus, if DM particles can interact with one another, some preliminary simulations have shown that large-scale spatial distribution of DM can show discrepancies from its galaxy-counterparts. This discrepancy is also known as the galaxy-DM offset, with a caveat. The long duration (millions of years) of a merger means that we cannot detect the direction of motions of the components directly to confirm the offset as a lag. My work on El Gordo was the first to show a quantitative method of estimating how likely the DM components of El Gordo are to be moving in a certain direction. This study was made possible by utilizing informative observables in various wavelengths, including a pair of radio shockwaves on the outer skirt of the cluster, enhanced X-ray emissivity and the decrement of the Sunyaev-Zel'Dovich effect for the infra-red observations. This comprehensive set of observables allowed us to formulate probabilistic constraints in our Monte Carlo simulation of El Gordo. Furthermore, the study also brought up several questions about the modeling choices for comparing the DM and the member-galaxy distributions of a cluster. For instance, do the DM maps and the galaxy maps have high enough resolution to show the delicate offset signal produced by the possible self-interaction of DM (SIDM)? To address my concerns from the study of El Gordo, I conducted a second investigation of galaxy clusters in a cosmological simulation, which is described in chapter 3. The dataset I chose was from the Illustris simulation. As this simulation assumes a Cold-Dark-Mattermodel (CDM) without requiring an SIDM model, any offset between DM and the member galaxies in a galaxy cluster provides an estimate of the variability of the galaxy-DM offset. My study shows that the variability in this setting is non-negligible compared to the small observed offsets, it is likely that random variation can account for the galaxy-DM offsets inobservations. The result weakens our belief that SIDM is the cause of the offsets. The fourth chapter of my dissertation builds on top of my previous experience with analyzing the weak lensing data for El Gordo. This time, I performed the weak lensing study for a dataset of a much larger spatial scale, such that, galaxy clusters look like parts of a homogeneous and isotropic DM web. At this scale, it is possible to compare the spatial distribution of DM to simulations to give competitive constraints on cosmological parameters. Using weak lensing signals for estimating cosmological parameters is also known as cosmic shear inference. While I used a parametric technique to estimate the mass of El Gordo in chapter 2, my work in chapter 4 introduces a new non-parametric model using a Gaussian Process. A Gaussian Process is a generalization of the multivariate normal distribution to higher dimensions. We can draw functional models from a Gaussian Process to describe our data. While the realizations are drawn from a multivariate normal distribution, we can specify the parameters and the functional structure of the covariance (kernel) matrix of the underlying distribution. This generative model gives us the ability to put probabilistic estimates of DM density in regions without any background galaxies. As I have built the lensing physics into the very core of the covariance kernel matrix, we can also simultaneously infer the several important lensing observables, such as shear and convergence, given some lensed galaxy shapes. More importantly, this technique relies on fewer assumptions about the photometric redshift than traditional cosmic shear analysis technique. This may reduce the bias towards a ducial cosmology and lead to interesting discoveries. However, this new technique is not without its challenges. Computationally, this technique requires an O(n3) runtime. Despite my best attempts to parallelize the computation, the algorithm takes longer for generating DM mass maps than traditional approaches. My work here marks the beginning of an alternative method for cosmic shear inference. Many promising approximation techniques have emerged to drastically speed up the runtime of doing inference with a Gaussian Process. Incorporating these approximations may make it possible to use this method to give tighter cosmological constraints from future sky surveys such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. I conclude my work in Chapter 5 and discuss the implications of my work. This includes some future directions for analyzing DM by using simulations with different underlying DM models and real data.