Related papers: Probing the width of the MACHO mass function
The MACHO Project is searching for galactic dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (Machos). Millions of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and Galactic bulge are photometrically…
The recent astrometric data of hundreds of millions of stars from Gaia DR3 has allowed a precise determination of the Milky Way rotation curve up to $28$~kpc. The data suggests a rapid decline in the density of dark matter beyond $19$~kpc.…
We report on our search for microlensing towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Analysis of 5.7 years of photometry on 11.9 million stars in the LMC reveals 13 - 17 microlensing events. This is significantly more than the $\sim$ 2 to 4…
We carry on a new analysis of the sample of MACHO microlensing candidates towards the LMC. Our main purpose is to determine the lens population to which the events may belong. We give particular emphasis to the possibility of characterizing…
Recently the French EROS collaboration and the American-Australian MACHO collaboration have reported the observation of altogether three possible microlensing events by monitoring over several years the brightness of millions of stars in…
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…
Current microlensing searches calibrate the mass fraction of the Milky Way halo which is in the form of Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). We show that surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) can probe the same quantity in…
Recent observations of microlensing events in the Large Magellanic Cloud suggest that a sizable fraction of the galactic halo is in the form of Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). Although the average MACHO mass is…
Recent observations of microlensing events in the Large Magellanic Cloud by the MACHO and EROS collaborations suggest that an important fraction of the galactic halo is in the form of Massive Halo Objects (MHO) with mass $\sim 0.1…
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…
We calculate the optical depth and the number of events due to gravitational microlensing towards the Galactic bulge, the spiral arm directions $\gamma$ Scutum, $\beta$ Scutum, $\gamma$ Normae, $\vartheta$ Muscae and some dwarf galaxies in…
We have searched for long duration microlensing events originating from intermediate mass Black Holes (BH) in the halo of the Milky Way, using archival data from EROS-2 and MACHO photometric surveys towards the Large Magellanic Cloud. We…
After a decade of gravitational microlensing experiments, a dozen of microlensing candidates in the direction of the stars of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) have been detected by the EROS and MACHO groups. Recently it was shown that the…
Using eight dark matter haloes extracted from fully-self consistent cosmological N-body simulations, we perform microlensing experiments. A hypothetical observer is placed at a distance of 8.5 kpc from the centre of the halo measuring…
The mass function of 51 Massive Compact Objects (MACHOs) detected toward the Galactic bulge is statistically estimated from Einstein ring crossing times $t_{\rm e}$. For a Gaussian mass function, the best fitting parameters are $\langle…
The claimed detection of large amounts of substructure in lensing flux anomalies, and in Milky Way stellar stream gaps statistics, has lead to a step change in constraints on simple warm dark matter models. In this study we compute…
Recently obtained kinematic data has shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) possesses an old stellar halo. In order to further characterize the properties of this halo, parametric King models are fit to the surface density of RR Lyrae…
The MACHO Project monitors millions of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Small Magellanic Cloud and the bulge of the Milky Way searching for the gravitational microlensing signature of baryonic dark matter. This Project has yielded…
Some previous studies have suggested that massive and intermediate-mass primordial black holes (PBHs) could comprise a substantial fraction of dark matter in the Universe. Such black holes, if they existed in the Milky Way halo, would give…
By means of extensive galactic modeling we study the implications of the more than 100 microlensing events that have now been observed for the composition of the dark halo of the Galaxy. Based on the currently published data, including the…