  In our current best cosmological model, the vast majority of matter in the
Universe is dark, consisting of yet undetected, non-baryonic particles that do
not interact electro-magnetically. So far, the only significant evidence for
dark matter has been found in its gravitational interaction, as observed in
galaxy rotation curves or gravitational lensing effects. The inferred dark
matter agglomerations follow almost universal mass density profiles that can be
reproduced well in simulations, but have eluded an explanation from a
theoretical viewpoint. Forgoing standard (astro-)physical methods, I show that
it is possible to derive these profiles from an intriguingly simple
mathematical approach that directly determines the most likely spatial
configuration of a self-gravitating ensemble of collisionless dark matter
particles.
