Dark Matter in the Local Universe
  We review how dark matter is distributed in our local neighbourhood from an
observational and theoretical perspective. We will start by describing first
the dark matter halo of our own galaxy and in the Local Group. Then we proceed
to describe the dark matter distribution in the more extended area known as the
Local Universe. Depending on the nature of dark matter, numerical simulations
predict different abundances of substructures in Local Group galaxies, in the
number of void regions and in the abundance of low rotational velocity galaxies
in the Local Universe. By comparing these predictions with the most recent
observations, strong constrains on the physical properties of the dark matter
particles can be derived. We devote particular attention to the results from
the Constrained Local UniversE Simulations (CLUES) project, a special set of
simulations whose initial conditions are constrained by observational data from
the Local Universe. The resulting simulations are designed to reproduce the
observed structures in the nearby universe. The CLUES provides a numerical
laboratory for simulating the Local Group of galaxies and exploring the physics
of galaxy formation in an environment designed to follow the observed Local
Universe. It has come of age as the numerical analogue of Near-Field Cosmology.
