SPECIAL ISSUE — Selected Essays from the Annual Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation 2020 and Invited Papers Dedicated to John D. Barrow (1952–2020)
Editor: D. V. Ahluwalia

Abstract

We discuss the existence of an acceleration scale in galaxies and galaxy clusters and its relevance for the nature of dark matter. The presence of the same acceleration scale found at very different length scales, and in very different astrophysical objects, strongly supports the existence of a fundamental acceleration scale governing the observed gravitational physics. We comment on the implications of such a fundamental acceleration scale for constraining cold dark matter models as well as its relevance for structure formation to be explored in future numerical simulations.

This essay received an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

Keywords:

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