Related papers: Mapping the Galactic Halo IV. Finding Distant Gian…
If there are so few upper red-giant branch stars in the SDSS-discovered dwarf galaxies, how can we find the true population structure without extensive spectroscopy? We review recent photometric and spectroscopic studies of the Ultra-Faint…
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…
Detailed studies of stellar populations in the halos of the Milky Way and the Andromeda (M 31) galaxies have shown increasing numbers of tidal streams and dwarf galaxies, attesting to a complicated and on-going process of hierarchical…
M giants, with their distinctive properties such as high luminosity, serve as excellent indicators for mapping the structure of the Milky Way. The distance to distant M giants can be determined by using the color-magnitude relation (CMR),…
We present an online catalog of distance determinations for $\rm 6036$ K giants, most of which are members of the Milky Way's stellar halo. Their medium-resolution spectra from SDSS/SEGUE are used to derive metallicities and rough gravity…
Water megamasers from circumnuclear disks in galaxy centers provide the most accurate measurements of supermassive black hole masses and uniquely probe the sub-parsec accretion processes. At the same time, these systems offer independent…
We study the density profile and shape of the Galactic halo using deep multicolour images from the MENeaCS and CCCP projects, over 33 fields selected to avoid overlap with the Galactic plane. Using multicolour selection and PSF…
We present revised stellar properties for 172 K2 target stars that were identified as possible hosts of transiting planets during Campaigns 1-17. Using medium-resolution near-infrared spectra acquired with the NASA Infrared Telescope…
The photometry data base of the second phase of the OGLE microlensing experiment, OGLE-II, is a rich source of information about the kinematics and structure of the Galaxy. In this work we use the OGLE-II proper motion catalogue to identify…
The distribution of dark matter in dwarf galaxies can have important implications on our understanding of galaxy formation as well as the particle physics properties of dark matter. However, accurately characterizing the dark matter content…
The Milky Way Galaxy contains a large, spherical component which is believed to harbor a substantial amount of unseen matter. Recent observations indirectly suggest that as much as half of this ``dark matter'' may be in the form of old,…
Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) direct detection experiments are just reaching the sensitivity required to detect Galactic dark matter in the form of neutralinos (or indeed any stable weakly interacting particle). Detection…
We present an analysis of the faint M star population seen as foreground contaminants in deep extragalactic surveys. We use space-based data to separate such stars from high redshift galaxies in a publically-available dataset, and consider…
Using the deep fields of COSMOS, FDF, HUDF, and HDF-N as an example, we discuss the prospects for and limitations on the method for searching for super large structures in the spatial distribution of galaxies proposed in the preceding…
The Magellanic Clouds are a local laboratory for understanding the evolution and properties of dwarf irregular galaxies. To reveal the extended structure and interaction history of the Magellanic Clouds we have undertaken a large-scale…
This study presents a tomographic survey of a subset of the outer halo (10-40 kpc) drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6. Halo substructure on spatial scales of $>3$ degrees is revealed as an excess in the local density of…
The GSC-II white dwarf survey was designed to identify faint and high proper motion objects, which we used to define a new and independent sample of cool white dwarfs. With this survey we aim to derive new constraints on the halo white…
We use a dense redshift survey in the foreground of the Subaru GTO2deg^2 weak lensing field (centered at $\alpha_{2000}$ = 16$^h04^m44^s$;$\delta_{2000}$ =43^\circ11^{\prime}24^{\prime\prime}$) to assess the completeness and comment on the…
The Gaia mission has provided the largest ever astrometric chart of the Milky Way. Using it to map the Galactic halo is helpful for disentangling its merger history. The identification of halo stars in Gaia DR2 with reliable distance…
Cool subdwarfs are the oldest members of the low mass stellar population. Mostly present in the galactic halo, subdwarfs are characterized by their low metallicity. Measuring their binary fraction and comparing it to solar metallicity stars…