Related papers: Point spread function tails and the measurements o…
We measure the ellipticity of isolated clusters of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using gravitational lensing. We stack the clusters, rotating so that the major axes of the ellipses determined by the positions of cluster…
Current theories of structure formation predict specific density profiles of galaxy dark matter haloes, and with weak gravitational lensing we can probe these profiles on several scales. On small scales, higher-order shape distortions known…
Over the past several decades, advances in telescope/detector technologies and deep imaging techniques have pushed surface brightness limits to ever fainter levels. We can now both detect and measure the diffuse, extended star light that…
The high-magnification gravitational lensing cross-section of a galaxy is enhanced significantly if a baryonic disc is embedded in its dark matter halo. We investigate the effects of a population of such disks on the probability of…
We develop a flexible set of action-based distribution functions (DFs) for stellar haloes. The DFs have five free parameters, controlling the inner and outer density slope, break radius, flattening and anisotropy respectively. The DFs…
A tangential distortion of background source galaxies around foreground lens galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field is detected at the 99.3% confidence level. An important element of our analysis is the use of photometric redshifts to determine…
Studies of the stellar and the HI gas kinematics in dwarf and Low Surface Brightness (LSB) galaxies are essential for deriving constraints on their dark matter distribution. Moreover, a key component to unveil in the evolution of LSBs is…
I review recent SDSS results related to galaxies and large scale structure, including: (1) discovery of coherent, unbound structures in the stellar halo, (2) demonstration that Pal 5 has tidal tails and Draco doesn't, (3) precise…
We present revised point-spread functions (PSFs) for the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). These PSFs provide a robust estimate of the light diffracted by the meshes holding the entrance and…
The presence of unseen halos of ``dark matter'' has long been inferred from the high rotation speeds of gas and stars in the outer parts of spiral galaxies$^{1}$. The volume density of this dark matter decreases less quickly from the…
If massive compact halo objects (\ms) are detected in ongoing searches, then \tsmctlmc, the ratio of the optical depth toward the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, will be a robust indicator of the flattening of the Galactic dark matter…
Using imaging data from the SDSS survey, we present the g' and r' radial stellar light distribution of a complete sample of ~90 face-on to intermediate inclined, nearby, late-type (Sb-Sdm) spiral galaxies. The surface brightness profiles…
We report optical photometry and HI synthesis observations of the southern edge-on S_c,d galaxy IC5249. The observations were carried out primarily to determine if IC5249 has a red halo surrounding it similar to the halo that has been…
Many high velocity HI clouds (HVCs) are now believed to be scattered throughout the Galactic halo on scales of tens of kiloparsecs. Some of these clouds appear to contain substantial HI masses (>10^6 Msun). It has been suggested that these…
Gravitational lensing has now become a popular tool to measure the mass distribution of structures in the Universe on various scales. Here we focus on the study of galaxy's scale dark matter halos with galaxy-galaxy lensing techniques:…
The observed flaring of HI disk in the outer region of galaxies has been used in the past to determine the shape of the dark matter halo. Previous studies based on this concept suggest a slightly oblate halo (axis ratio ~ 0.8) for our…
Scattered light images of circumstellar disks play an important role in characterizing the planet forming environments around young stars. The characteristic size of the scattering dust grains can be estimated from the observed brightness…
We present a measurement of average histograms of line-of-sight velocities over pairs of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Since the histogram can be measured at different galaxy-cluster separations, this observable is commonly referred to as…
The physically motivated definition of galaxy size proposed recently, linked to the farther location of the in situ star formation, considerably reduces the scatter of the galaxy mass-size relation and provides a viable method to infer the…
We fit an Extended Distribution Function (EDF) to K giants in the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) survey. These stars are detected to radii ~80 kpc and span a wide range in [Fe/H]. Our EDF, which depends…