Related papers: Gaia, Fundamental Physics, and Dark Matter
Since its launch in 2013, the Gaia space telescope has provided precise measurements of the positions and magnitudes of over 1 billion stars. This has enabled extensive searches for stellar and sub-stellar companions through astrometric and…
In this paper, we first summarize the results of a large-scale double-blind tests campaign carried out for the realistic estimation of the Gaia potential in detecting and measuring planetary systems. Then, we put the identified capabilities…
Most of what we know about the formation of stars, and essentially everything we know about the formation of planets, comes from observations of our solar neighborhood within 2 kpc of the Sun. Before 2018, accurate distance measurements…
The Gaia satellite will observe about one billion stars and other point-like sources. The astrometric core solution will determine the astrometric parameters (position, parallax, and proper motion) for a subset of these sources, using a…
Gaia will be ESA's milestone astrometric mission, and is due for launch at the end of 2013. Gaia will repeatedly map the whole sky measuring about one billion sources to V=20-22 mag. Its data products will be {\mu}as accuracy astrometry,…
Stellar mass is a fundamental parameter that is key to our understanding of stellar formation and evolution, as well as the characterization of nearby exoplanet companions. Historically, stellar masses have been derived from long-term…
I provide a summary of the ESA space astrometry mission Gaia regarding its main objectives and current status following the 2nd data release (Gaia DR2) in April 2018. The Gaia achievements in astrometry are assessed with a historical…
The second data release of ESA's Gaia satellite (Gaia DR2) revolutionised astronomy by providing accurate distances, proper motions, apparent magnitudes, and in many cases temperatures and radial velocities for an unprecedented number of…
The second Gaia data release (GDR2) provides precise five-parameter astrometric data (positions, proper motions and parallaxes) for an unprecedented amount of sources (more than $1.3$ billion, mostly stars). The use of this wealth of…
A general overview of the understanding of our Galaxy is presented following the lines of its main structures: halo, disc, bulge/bar. This review is emphasising some "Time Domain Astronomy" contributions. On the one hand the distance and…
Precision astrometry offers a way to probe new physics. By measuring the angular position of light sources at unprecedented precision, astrometry could probe minuscule fluctuations of underlying spacetime. This work explores the possibility…
This tutorial covers the use of absolute astrometry, in particular from the combination of the Hipparcos and Gaia missions, to identify faint companions to nearby stars and to measure the masses and orbits of those companions. Absolute…
Astrometric missions like Gaia provide exceptionally precise measurements of stellar positions and proper motions. Gravitational waves traveling between the observer and distant stars can induce small, correlated shifts in these apparent…
The Gaia space mission is crafting revolutionary astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic catalogues that will allow us to map our Galaxy, but only if we know the completeness of this Gaia-verse of catalogues: what stars does it contain…
We show for the first time how to conduct a direct search for dark matter using Gaia observations. Its public astrometric data may contain the signals of mirror stars, exotic compact objects made of atomic dark matter with a tiny kinetic…
Stellar distances constitute a foundational pillar of astrophysics. The publication of 1.47 billion stellar parallaxes from Gaia is a major contribution to this. Yet despite Gaia's precision, the majority of these stars are so distant or…
The Gaia mission has triggered major developments in the field of Galactic dynamics in recent years, which we discuss in this review. The structure and kinematics of all Galactic components - disc, bar/bulge and halo - are now mapped in…
Dark matter is a fundamental constituent of the universe, which is needed to explain a wide variety of astrophysical and cosmological observations. Although the existence of dark matter was first postulated nearly a century ago and its…
Gaia mission will offer an exceptional opportunity to perform variability studies. The data homogeneity, its optimised photometric systems, composed of 11 medium and 4-5 broad bands, the high photometric precision in G band of one milli-mag…
Stellar multiplicity is among the oldest and richest problems in astrophysics. Binary stars are a cornerstone of stellar mass and radius measurements that underpin modern stellar evolutionary models. Binaries are the progenitors of many of…