Related papers: Pixel and Micro-lensing with NGST
After decades of searching, the true nature of dark matter still eludes us. One potential probe of the form of dark matter in galaxy clusters is to search for microlensing variability in the giant arcs and arclets. In this paper, a simple…
The MACHO project is a search for dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs). The project has photometrically monitored tens of millions of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and…
A galaxy cluster acts as a cosmic telescope over background galaxies but also as a cosmic microscope of the lens imperfections. The diverging magnification of lensing caustics enhances the microlensing effect of substructure present within…
We provide a status report on our search for dark matter in our Galaxy in the form of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs), using gravitational microlensing of background stars. This search uses a very large CCD camera on the dedicated…
Microlensing experiments today have a tantalizing result; they have detected an excess of microlensing events beyond what is expected from known stellar populations. These events could be due to a possible form of Halo dark matter. However,…
It has been suggested that a monitoring program employing the pixel lensing method to search for microlensing events towards galactic globular clusters may increase the statistics and discriminate among different halo models. Stimulated by…
The advent of new deep+wide photometric lensing surveys will open up the possibility of direct measurements of the dark matter halos of dwarf galaxies. The HSC wide survey will be the first with the statistical capability of measuring the…
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…
The microlensing of background stars by compact objects in globular clusters is analyzed. The main strength of the proposed search is the direct relationship between the lens mass and the time scale of the microlensing event. The main…
Microlensing observations towards M31 are a powerful tool for the study of the dark matter population in the form of MACHOs both in the Galaxy and the M31 halos, a still unresolved issue, as well as for the analysis of the characteristics…
We discuss the results of the MEGA microlensing campaign towards M31. Our analysis is based on an analytical evaluation of the microlensing rate, taking into account the observational efficiency as given by the MEGA collaboration. In…
OGLE and other projects are likely to discover first stellar mass black holes and the first planets through gravitational lensing in the next year or two. It is important to have follow-up projects ready, using diverse observing methods.…
We argue that gravitational microlensing is a feasible technique for measuring the mass function of brown dwarf stars in distant galaxies. Microlensing surveys of the bulge of M31, and of M87 in the Virgo cluster, may provide enough events…
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…
High-resolution N-body simulations of dark matter halos indicate that the Milky Way contains numerous subhalos. When a dark matter subhalo passes in front of a star, the light from that star will be deflected by gravitational lensing,…
The only way to detect planets around stars at distances of several kpc is by (photometric or astrometric) microlensing observations. In this paper, we show that the capability of photometric microlensing extends to the detection of signals…
A 30 m class optical/near-IR telescope in the Northern Hemisphere, equipped for diffraction-limited imaging and high-resolution, multi-object spectroscopy of faint stars, would enable a transformational investigation of the formation and…
We present the first M31 candidate microlensing events from the Microlensing Exploration of the Galaxy and Andromeda (MEGA) survey. MEGA uses several telescopes to detect microlensing towards the nearby Andromeda galaxy, M31, in order to…
We assess how much unused strong lensing information is available in the deep \emph{Hubble Space Telescope} imaging and VLT/MUSE spectroscopy of the \emph{Frontier Field} clusters. As a pilot study, we analyse galaxy cluster…
Four ongoing microlensing experiments have produced important new results but also big puzzles, the major one being that the expected classes of lenses cannot account for the observed distribution of time scales. I discuss future…