Abstract. Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) may represent today fundamental laboratories for testing the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) paradigm at the small scale of galaxy formation. Hints for inner cores hosted in the halos of these Dark Matter dominated objects, supplied with the long-standing "Too-Big-To-Fail" puzzle, may serve as a quite unique indicator in favor of a scenario beyond the collisionless standard lore.
After briefly reviewing the essential set of evidences in favor of the CDM small-scale crisis, in this talk we will firstly introduce the basics for a detailed estimate of the Dark Matter content in Milky Way dSphs. Based on that, we will then present a complementary approach to N-body simulations in order to shed new lights on the Self-Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM) paradigm as a compelling solution to the "Core vs Cusp" and the "Too-Big-To-Fail" problems.
Exploiting the available stellar kinematic data in conjunction with some inputs from pure CDM N-body simulations, we will provide the first data-driven estimate of the SIDM cross-section per unit mass probed by the eight brightest Milky Way dwarf satellites. Personal considerations on the effective goodness of the SIDM proposal and possible future perspectives on the topic will be outlined as concluding remarks of the presentation.
(The slides will be available here)