The Milky Way as a laboratory for dark matter, galaxy formation and stellar dynamics studies

In the standard cosmological model, dark matter provides the primordial potential wells in which baryons can get captured. In this model, galaxies grow hierarchically through the condensation of gas into stars at the center of dark matter halos and mergers for which the dark matter provides the necessary background for dynamical friction to operate. Dark matter models make a number of falsifiable predictions on Galactic scales which remain to be tested, in particular on the structure of dark matter halos and their abundance from galaxy hosting halos and possibly down to Earth mass halos (in the case of cold dark matter), which are sensitive to the nature of the dark matter. Our position in the Milky Way offers us a unique chance to probe the distribution of matter through stellar dynamics with large surveys (astrometric, photometric & spectroscopic) but also its formation history through the access of complementary information encrypted in its stellar populations (phase-space, chemistry, age). Together this information may be used to infer, date and probe various stages of galaxy formation and assembly in a L* galaxy, but also study the properties of the progenitor galaxies that make up the stellar halo. This makes the Milky Way a unique probe to studying high-z galaxies in our cosmic backyard. The Gaia satellite is opening new doors to probe complex dynamical processes operating on small and large scales ushering a new era for studying Galactic dynamics but also how dark matter behaves on large/small scales. I will discuss some of my recent work on and future directions for the field in the post-Gaia era in the age of ground based spectroscopic surveys (WEAVE, SDSS-V, 4MOST), the LSST and its connection to the era of 30m telescopes.