Related papers: SMILE: Search for MIlli-LEnses
With today's millimeter and submillimeter instruments observers use gravitational lensing mostly as a tool to boost the sensitivity when observing distant objects. This is evident through the dominance of gravitationally lensed objects…
Compact dark matter has been efficiently constrained in the M <~ 10 M_sun mass range by null searches for microlensing of stars in nearby galaxies. Here we propose to probe the mass range M >~ 10 M_sun by seeking echoes in gamma-ray-burst…
The measurements of the possible gravitational microlensing events are analysed with a simple yet accurate disc--halo model of the Milky Way Galaxy. This comprises a luminous exponential disc embedded in a flattened dark matter halo with…
Gravitational microlensing is a powerful tool to search for a population of invisible black holes (BHs) in the Milky Way (MW), including isolated BHs and binary BHs at wide orbits that are complementary to gravitational wave observations.…
Utilizing gravitational-wave (GW) lensing opens a new way to understand the small-scale structure of the universe. We show that, in spite of its coarse angular resolution and short duration of observation, LIGO can detect the GW lensing…
Stellar-mass primordial black holes (PBHs) from the early Universe can directly contribute to the gravitational wave (GW) events observed by LIGO, but can only comprise a subdominant component of the dark matter (DM). The primary DM…
A particular open problem in cosmology is whether dark matter on small scales is clumpy, forming gravitationally-bound halos distributed within the Galaxy. The practical difficulties inherent in testing this hypothesis stem from the fact…
We explore the lowest mass limit that can be placed on the halo mass function in CDM using 28 strong gravitational lenses. For this purpose, we study an extreme model in which the halo mass function and mass-concentration relation follow…
To reveal the galactic dark matter in the form of MACHOs ("Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects"), the POINT-AGAPE collaboration is carrying out a search for gravitational microlensing towards M31. A clear microlensing signal is…
The nature of dark matter (DM) remains unknown despite very precise knowledge of its abundance in the universe. An alternative to new elementary particles postulates DM as made of macroscopic compact halo objects (MACHO) such as black holes…
Dark matter (DM) occupies the majority of matter content in the universe and is probably cold (CDM). However, modifications to the standard CDM model may be required by the small-scale observations, and DM may be self-interacting (SIDM) or…
We use a sample of 17 strong gravitational lens systems from the BELLS GALLERY survey to quantify the amount of low-mass dark matter haloes within the lensing galaxies and along their lines of sight, and to constrain the properties of dark…
The high sensitivity of upcoming space-based gravitational wave detectors suggests the possibility that if halo dark matter were composed of primordial black holes (PBHs) with mass between $10^{16}$ g and 10$^{20}$ g, the gravitational…
Dark matter may be in the form of non-baryonic structures such as compact subhalos and boson stars. Structures weighing between asteroid and solar masses may be discovered via gravitational microlensing, an astronomical probe that has in…
The primordial black hole (PBH) comprising full dark matter (DM) abundance is currently allowed if its mass lies between $10^{-16}M_{\odot} \lesssim M \lesssim 10^{-11} M_{\odot}$. This lightest mass range is hard to be probed by ongoing…
Dark matter is an important ingredient of galaxies, as was recognised early on by Ken Freeman himself! Evidence for dark matter halos is still indirect, based on analysing motions of tracers such as gas and stars. In a sense the visible…
We report the ALMA Band 7 observations of 86 Herschel sources that likely contain gravitationally-lensed galaxies. These sources are selected with relatively faint 500 $\mu$m flux densities between 15 to 85 mJy in an effort to characterize…
Strong gravitational lensing has been identified as a promising astrophysical probe to study the particle nature of dark matter. In this paper we present a detailed study of the power spectrum of the projected mass density (convergence)…
We review dark matter (DM) candidates of a very low mass, appearing in the window below the traditional weakly-interacting massive particle $m_\chi \lesssim 10$ GeV and extending down to $m_\chi \gtrsim 1$ meV, somewhat below the mass limit…
It is generally thought that galaxies are embedded in dark matter halos extending well beyond their luminous matter. The existence of these galactic halos is mainly derived from the larger than expected velocities of stars and gas in the…