Statistical properties of the dark matter haloes of dwarf galaxies and
  correlations with the environment
  According to the now strongly supported concordance $\Lambda$CDM model,
galaxies may be grossly described as a luminous component embedded in a dark
matter halo. The density profile of these mass dominating haloes may be
determined by N - body simulations which mimic the evolution of the tiny
initial density perturbations during the process leading to the structures we
observe today. Unfortunately, when the effect of baryons is taken into account,
the situation gets much more complicated due to the difficulties in simulating
their physics. As a consequence, a definitive prediction of how dark matter
haloes should presently look like is still missing. We revisit here this issue
from an observational point of view devoting our attention to dwarf galaxies.
Being likely dark matter dominated, these systems are ideal candidates to
investigate the present day halo density profiles and check whether dark matter
related quantities correlate with the stellar ones or the environment. By
fitting a large sample of well measured rotation curves, we infer constraints
on both halo structural parameters (such as the logarithmic slope of the
density profile and its concentration) and derived quantities (e.g., the mass
fraction and the Newtonian acceleration) which could then be used to constrain
galaxy formation scenarios. Moreover, we investigate whether the halo
properties correlates with the environment the galaxy lives in thus offering a
new tool to deepen our understanding of galaxy formation.
