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Dark matter is hypothetical matter believed to address the missing mass problem in galaxies. However, alternative theories, such as Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), have been notably successful in explaining the missing mass problem in…
It has been suggested recently that the change in cosmological redshift (the Sandage test of expansion) could be observed in the next generation of large telescopes and ultra-stable spectrographs. In a recent paper we estimated the change…
Dynamical mass estimates of simple systems such globular clusters (GCs) still suffer from up to a factor of 2 uncertainty. This is primarily due to the oversimplifications of standard dynamical models that often neglect the effects of the…
We examine the implications of Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) on the large scale structure in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe. We employ a ``Jeans swindle'' to write a MOND-type relationship between the fluctuations in the density…
We present dynamical distance estimates for 15 Galactic globular clusters and use these to check the consistency of dynamical and photometric distance estimates. For most of the clusters, this is the first dynamical distance estimate ever…
We study the amplitude of the weak gravitational lensing signal as a function of stellar mass around a sample of relatively isolated galaxies. This selection of lenses simplifies the interpretation of the observations, which consist of data…
We present proper motion (PM) measurements for a sample of 23 massive star clusters within the Large Magellanic Cloud using multi-epoch data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We combined archival data from the ACS/WFC and WFC3/UVIS…
The distributions of peculiar velocities of rich clusters and of groups of galaxies are investigated for different cosmological models and are compared with observations. Four cosmological models are studied: standard ($\Omega=1$) CDM,…
Extremely wide binary stars represent ideal systems to probe Newtonian dynamics in the low acceleration regimes (<10e-10 m/s/s) typical of the external regions of galaxies. Here we present a study of 60 alleged wide binary stars with…
Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) is an alternative to the dark matter hypothesis that attempts to explain the "missing gravity" problem in astrophysics and cosmology through a modification to objects' dynamics. Since its conception in…
We investigate the rms peculiar velocity of galaxy clusters in the Lambda cold dark matter ($\Lambda$CDM) and tau cold dark matter ($\tau$CDM) cosmological models using N-body simulations. Cluster velocities for different cluster masses and…
We present results from a study of the distances and distribution of a sample of intermediate-age clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Using deep near-infrared photometry obtained with ISPI on the CTIO 4m, we have measured the apparent…
We use velocity dispersion measurements of 21 individual cluster members in the core of Abell 383, obtained with MMT Hectospec, to separate the galaxy and the smooth dark halo (DH) lensing contributions. While lensing usually constrains the…
We present the stellar population, using {\it Gaia}\,DR2 parallax, kinematics, and photometry, of the young ($\sim 100$~Myr), nearby ($\sim 230$~pc) open cluster, Blanco1. A total of 644 member candidates are identified via the unsupervised…
Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) and similar proposals can (at least partially) explain the excess rotation of galaxies or the equivalent mass-discrepancy acceleration, without (or by reducing) the requirement of dark matter halos. This…
Milgrom's modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) has done a great job on accounting for the rotation curves of a variety of galaxies by assuming that Newtonian dynamics breaks down for extremely low acceleration typically found in the galactic…
Kinematically cold tidal streams of globular clusters (GC) are excellent tracers of the Galactic gravitational potential at moderate Galactocentric distances, and can also be used as probes of the law of gravity on Galactic scales. Here, we…
We present high dispersion echelle spectroscopy of the very luminous, young super star cluster (SSC) `F' in M82, obtained with the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT), for the purpose of deriving its dynamical mass and assessing whether…
Both microlensing surveys and radio-frequency observations of gas flow imply that the inner Milky Way is completely dominated by baryons, contrary to the predictions of standard cold dark matter (CDM) cosmology. We investigate the…
B,V CCD frames have been used to derive surface brightness profiles for NGC 3201 out to ~18 arcmin. A total of 857 radial velocities with median precision ~1 km/s for 399 member giants have been used to trace the velocity dispersion profile…