The problem with ΛCDM are myriad and involve many independent issues anyone of which is a serious blow to the model. Collectively, they robustly demonstrate that the "Standard Model of Cosmology" which is the current paradigm (as much as anything because no consensus alternative has been developed), is deeply flawed.
A good place to begin is with this review article:
The dark energy plus cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmological model has been a demonstrably successful framework for predicting and explaining the large-scale structure of Universe and its evolution with time. Yet on length scales smaller than ∼1 Mpc and mass scales smaller than ∼1011M⊙, the theory faces a number of challenges. For example, the observed cores of many dark-matter dominated galaxies are both less dense and less cuspy than naively predicted in ΛCDM. The number of small galaxies and dwarf satellites in the Local Group is also far below the predicted count of low-mass dark matter halos and subhalos within similar volumes. These issues underlie the most well-documented problems with ΛCDM: Cusp/Core, Missing Satellites, and Too-Big-to-Fail. The key question is whether a better understanding of baryon physics, dark matter physics, or both will be required to meet these challenges. Other anomalies, including the observed planar and orbital configurations of Local Group satellites and the tight baryonic/dark matter scaling relations obeyed by the galaxy population, have been less thoroughly explored in the context of ΛCDM theory. . . .
James S. Bullock, Michael Boylan-Kolchin, "
Small-Scale Challenges to the ΛCDM Paradigm" (July 13, 2017, last updated September 2, 2019) arXiv 1707.04256
See also:
We present rotation curve fits to 175 late-type galaxies from the Spitzer Photometry & Accurate Rotation Curves (SPARC) database using seven dark matter (DM) halo profiles: pseudo-isothermal (pISO), Burkert, Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW), Einasto, DC14, cored-NFW, and a new semi-empirical profile named Lucky13. We marginalize over stellar mass-to-light ratio, galaxy distance, disk inclination, halo concentration and halo mass (and an additional shape parameter for Einasto) using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. We find that cored halo models such as the DC14 and Burkert profiles generally provide better fits to rotation curves than the cuspy NFW profile. The stellar mass-halo mass relation from abundance matching is recovered by all halo profiles once imposed as a Bayesian prior, whereas the halo mass-concentration relation is not reproduced in detail by any halo model. We provide an extensive set of figures as well as best-fit parameters in machine-readable tables to facilitate model comparison and the exploration of DM halo properties.
Pengfei Li, Federico Lelli, Stacy McGaugh, James Schombert, "
A comprehensive catalog of dark matter halo models for SPARC galaxies" (January 28, 2020). arXiv 2001.10538
"Here we present a new challenge for CDM by showing that some of Milky Way's satellites are too dense, requiring the formation masses and redshifts of halos in CDM not compatible with being a satellite." Mohammadtaher Safarzadeh, Abraham Loeb "
A New Challenge for Dark Matter Models" arXiv:2017.03478 (July 7, 2021).
"Simulations predict dark-matter dominated systems with stellar-to-total enclosed mass ratios that are a factor of 1.5-2 smaller than real galaxies at all radii. This is an alternative manifestation of the `failed feedback problem'" (
Marasco 2020).
Other phenomena that are hard to explain with the ΛCDM model are (1) dwarf galaxies with almost no apparent dark matter, (2) the behavior of
wide binary star systems in which the stars appear to be bound by a gravitational force stronger than predicted by general relativity (also
here), (3) the fact that inferred dark matter halo shapes differ from the theoretically predicted NFW distribution (see, e.g., Bullock (2017) and Li (2020), quoted above), (4) the fact that inferred dark matter distributions are
tightly linked in a predictable manner to observed ordinary matter distributions even at a fine scaled level that is basically impossible to explain with truly collisionless dark matter particles that interact exclusively through gravity in a manner prescribed by General Relativity; this is also the case
in galaxy clusters; (5) the
systemic variation in the amount of apparent dark matter in elliptical galaxies, or why spiral galaxies have
smaller proportions of ordinary matter than elliptical galaxies in same sized inferred dark matter halos, or why
thick spiral galaxies have more inferred dark matter than thin ones or why
the number of satellite galaxies is related to budge mass in spiral galaxies; (6)
deficits of X-ray emissions in low surface brightness galaxies; (7) it predicts
too few galaxy clusters; and (8) it gets
globular cluster formation wrong (see also
here).
Dark matter can't explain bulge formation in galaxies: Alyson M. Brooks, Charlotte R. Christensen, "
Bulge Formation via Mergers in Cosmological Simulations" (12 Nov 2015). Conversely, "There is a significant deficit of intrinsically thin disk galaxies, which however comprise most of the locally observed galaxy population." Moritz Haslbauer, Indranil Banik, Pavel Kroupa, Nils Wittenburg, Behnam Javanmardi, "The High Fraction of Thin Disk Galaxies Continues to Challenge ΛCDM Cosmology"
arXiv:2202.01221 (February 2, 2022) (published at 925 ApJ, 183 (2022) DOI:
10.3847/1538-4357/ac46ac.
void galaxies in the observation sample seem to have generally larger mean-distance than simulated ones at any given void size. In addition, observed void galaxies tend to reside closer to the void center than those in the simulation. This discrepancy is also shown in the density profile of voids. Regardless of the void size, the central densities of real void profiles are higher than the ones in the predicted simulated catalog.
Saeed Tavasoli, "V
oid Galaxy Distribution: A Challenge for ΛCDM"
arXiv:2109.10369 (September 21, 2021) (Accepted in ApJ Letter) DOI:
10.3847/2041-8213/ac1357.
The LambdaCDM model of cosmology predicts a characteristic scaling relationship between galactic cluster size and velocity dispersion. Reality doesn't agree. The power law should have an exponent of three in the LambaCDM model. The power law actually differs from that by more than four sigma at 4 ± 0.1. Yong Tian, Han Cheng, Stacy S. McGaugh, Chung-Ming Ko, Yun-Hsin Hsu "Mass-Velocity Dispersion Relation in MaNGA Brightest Cluster Galaxies"
arXiv:2108.08980 (August 20, 2021) (published in 24 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 917).
There is also
evidence of an "external field effect" that is too strong to be explained by tidal forces found in the ΛCDM model.
There are also some issues with the ΛCDM model when compared with observational data at the larger cosmology scale. Most notably, (1) galaxies form too quickly (
the impossible early galaxies problem), (2)
21cm wavelength radiation data that demonstrates the temperature of the universe at 180 million to 280 million years after the Big Bang, seems inconsistent with the model because the universe was much colder than predicted and is instead consistent with a no dark matter hypothesis, (3) the velocity of colliding galaxy clusters is also too often higher than it predicts, and (4) the ΛCDM model predicts that the most massive galaxies should be several hundred times more common than they are and it is harder for astronomers to miss hundreds of huge galaxies than it is for them to miss large numbers of tiny ones.
And another cosmology scale problem is that: "[T]he direction of the dipole in the quasar sky is similar to that of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), its amplitude is over twice as large, rejecting the canonical, exclusively kinematic interpretation of the CMB dipole with a p-value of 10^{-4} (3.9 sigma), the highest significance achieved to date in such studies. Our results are in conflict with the cosmological principle, a foundational assumption of the concordance LambdaCDM model." (
Secrest 2020).
A January 13, 2021 article in issue 358 of BBC Science Focus Magazine entitled "
The Cracks in Cosmology: Why Our Universe Doesn't Add Up?" by Marcus Chown identifies three notable recent flaws in this model in observations newly made in 2020. First, he points to the
gravitational lensing of subhalos in galactic clusters recently observed to be much more compact and less "puffy" than LambdaCDM would predict. Secondly, he points to a
KIDS telescope observation of very large scale structure which shows it to be 8.3% smoother (i.e. less clumpy) than predicted by LambdaCDM. Third, he points to the Hubble tension (see, e.g.,
here) that shows that Hubble's constant, which is a measure of the expansion rate of the universe, is about 10% smaller when measured via cosmic microwave background radiation (with a small margin of error) than when measured by a wide variety of measures at times much more removed from the Big Bang that the time at which the cosmic microwave background came into being.