Related papers: Limits on Dark Matter Compact Objects implied by S…
Quasar microlensing serves as a unique probe of discrete objects within galaxies and galaxy clusters. Recent advancement of the technique shows that it can constrain planet-scale objects beyond our native galaxy by studying their induced…
Gravitational waves from binary black holes that are gravitationally lensed can be distorted by small microlenses along the line of sight. Microlenses with masses of a few tens of solar masses, and that are close to a critical curve in the…
Dark matter in the form of axions is expected to form miniclusters, and their dense regions can harbor compact axion stars. Such axion stars could be discovered by microlensing events. In particular, some candidate events reported by Subaru…
To account for the microlensing events observed in the Galactic halo, Gurevich, Zybin, and Sirota have proposed a model of gravitationally bound, noncompact objects with masses of 0.01-1M_\odot. These objects are formed in the expanding…
We examine a caustic-straddling arc at $z=0.9397$ in the field of the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.1-2403 ($z=0.397$) using archival multiband HST images and show that its surface brightness exhibits anomalies that can be explained by a single…
Primordial black holes are unique probes of cosmology, general relativity, quantum gravity and non standard particle physics. They can be considered as the ultimate particle accelerator in their last (explosive) moments since they are…
Clusters of galaxies have a huge mass which can act as gravitational lenses. Galaxies behind clusters can be distorted to form arcs in images by the lenses. Herein a search was done for giant lensed arcs by galaxy clusters using the SDSS…
While large numbers of supermassive black holes have been detected at z>6, their origin is still essentially unclear. Numerical simulations have shown that the conditions for the classical direct collapse scenario are very restrictive and…
This paper argues that there is a large population of dark galaxies which reveals its presence by the gravitational lensing of quasars, and outnumbers normal galaxies by around 3:1. There are 8 double quasars with a separation greater than…
We have monitored 8.6 million stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud for 1.1 years and have found 3 events consistent with gravitational microlensing. We place strong constraints on the Galactic halo content in the form of compact lensing…
Large magnification factors near gravitational lensing caustics of galaxy cluster lenses allow the study of individual stars or compact stellar associations at cosmological distances. We study how the presence of sub-galactic subhalos, an…
We define compactness of a gravitational lens as the scaled closest distance of approach (i.e., $r_0/M$) of the null geodesic giving rise to an image. We model forty supermassive dark objects as Schwarzschild lenses and compute compactness…
We consider small-scale spheroidal clusters of weakly interacting massive particles in our Galaxy as non-compact gravitational microlenses and predict the appearance of caustics in the plane of a lensed source. The crossing of these…
It is estimated that a star brighter than visual magnitude 17 is undergoing a detectable gravitational microlensing event, somewhere on the sky, at any given time. It is assumed that both lenses and sources are normal stars drawn from a…
Stars in globular clusters can act either as sources for MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects) located along the line of sight or as lenses for more distant background stars. Although the expected rate of microlensing events…
By monitoring a large number of stars in the Local Group galaxies, we can detect nanolensing events by sub-lunar mass compact objects (SULCOs) such as primordial black holes (PBHs) and rogue (free-floating) dwarf planets in the Milky Way…
If captured by the gravitational field of stars or other compact objects, dark matter can self-annihilate and produce a potentially detectable particle flux. In the case of superheavy dark matter ($ m_{X} \gtrsim 10^{8} GeV $), a large…
The discovery of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers has renewed interest in primordial black holes forming a part of the dark matter density of our Universe. Various tests have been proposed to test this hypothesis. One of…
Advances in high angular resolution astronomy make it conceivable that black hole dark matter could be detected via angular deviation effects. Assuming the dark matter in the galaxy is made of solar mass black holes, there is a non-trivial…
The possibility that primordial black hole binary mergers of stellar mass can explain the signals detected by the gravitational-wave interferometers has attracted much attention. In this scenario, primordial black holes can comprise only…