Joint Astrophysical Colloquium
MOND: An alternative to particle dark matter
Federico Lelli (INAF-OAA)
Thursday 19/02/2026 @ 11:30, Sala Antonio Sollima (IV piano Battiferro)
Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) is a major alternative to particle dark matter, proposed by Moti Milgrom in 1983. MOND modifies the non-relativistic laws of dynamics at low accelerations, below a characteristic acceleration scale. In this talk, I will review the successful predictions that MOND had on the scales of galaxies and galaxy groups, as well as the long-standing challenges it faces in galaxy clusters. In particular, I will focus on the dynamical laws and regularities followed by galaxies, which are empirical facets of the dark matter problem, independently of MOND. Finally, I will briefly mention recent progress in building relativistic extensions of MOND, which allow reproducing the cosmic microwave background and the linear matter power spectrum.