The impact of Self-Interacting Dark Matter on the Intrinsic Alignments of Galaxies

Understand

The formation and evolution of galaxies is known to be sensitive to tidal processes leading to intrinsic correlations between their shapes and orientations.

• Such correlations can be measured to high significance today, suggesting that cosmological information can be extracted from them.
• Among the most pressing questions in particle physics and cosmology is the nature of dark matter.
• If dark matter is self-interacting, it can leave an imprint on galaxy shapes.