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Accepted manuscript

(Re)Assessing Galaxy Clusters with Cosmological Models: Scales, Anisotropies, and Scientific Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2025

Tianzhe Cozette Shen*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
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Abstract

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Galaxy clusters are commonly used tracers of cosmology. Gravitational lensing analysis of the Bullet Cluster is claimed to evidentially support dark matter, an important component in the ΛCDM cosmology. I argue that such ΛCDM-based models of individual galaxy clusters should be explanatory to meet such claims, but hardly in an ontic sense, due to galaxy cluster anisotropies, empirically equivalent non-ΛCDM-based models, and currently unaccountable cases. I propose that adopting an alternative epistemic/representational conception of scientific explanation can maintain the explanatory nature of individual galaxy cluster models, cope with the three complications, and be potentially generalizable to other branches of astrophysics.

Information

Type
Contributed Paper
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Philosophy of Science Association