Related papers: Using the Supernova / Acceleration Probe (SNAP) to…
For true insight into the nature of dark energy, measurements of the precision and accuracy of the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP) are required. Precursor or scaled-down experiments are unavoidably limited, even for distinguishing the…
The primary goal of this paper is to provide the evidence that can either prove or falsify the hypothesis that dark matter in the Galactic halo can clump into stellar-mass compact objects. If such objects existed, they would act as lenses…
Within 8 years, the current microlensing surveys of M31 will provide several hundred events affecting unresolved stars. They will thus allow a statistical study of the dark matter in M31's halo. The NGST will resolve these stars and…
The upcoming 4-m International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) facility will perform deep imaging (in single scan $g'$ $\sim$22 mag.) of a narrow strip of sky each clear night in the Time Delayed Integration mode. A cadence of one day…
We study the accuracy of inference of the massive halo objects' (MHO or `Macho') mass function from microlensing events observed toward LMC. Assuming the spatial distribution and kinematics of the objects are known, the slope and the range…
We detail how microlensing internal to M31 could be used to test whether a large fraction of the matter in spiral galaxy haloes is composed of dark objects with masses comparable to those of stars, and in the process show how the…
If the massive compact halo object (MACHO) fraction of the Galactic dark halo is f ~ 20% as suggested by some microlensing experiments, then about 1.2% of lensing events toward the Galactic bulge are due to MACHOs. For the 40% of these that…
We present the analysis of the first two years of a search for microlensing of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud with the EROS (Exp\'erience de Recherche d'Objets Sombres) project. A single event is detected, already present in the first…
Massive Compact objects in the halo, known as MACHOs, have been postulated as the origin of a substantial fraction of `dark matter' known to exist in the haloes of galaxies$^{1,2}$. Paczy\'nski$^3$ has suggested that it might possible to…
Nearby masses can have a high probability of lensing stars in a distant background field. High-probability lensing, or mesolensing, can therefore be used to dramatically increase our knowledge of dark and dim objects in the solar…
Weak gravitational lensing provides a unique method to directly map the dark matter in the universe and measure cosmological parameters. Current weak lensing surveys are limited by the atmospheric seeing from the ground and by the small…
The distance-redshift relation observed for supernovae has led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. A next generation experiment, the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP), can investigate the nature of the…
Isolated black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs) are largely undetectable across the electromagnetic spectrum. For this reason, our only real prospect of observing these isolated compact remnants is via microlensing; a feat recently…
In this paper we investigate the properties of astrometric microlensing of distant radio sources (QSOs and radio galaxies) due to MACHOs, and discuss their implications for VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). First we show that in…
The aim of this paper is to investigate ways to optimize the accuracy of photometric redshifts for a SNAP like mission. We focus on how the accuracy of the photometric redshifts depends on the magnitude limit and signal-to-noise ratio,…
Examining the properties of subhalos with strong gravitational lensing images can shed light on the nature of dark matter. From upcoming large-scale surveys, we expect to discover orders of magnitude more strong lens systems that can be…
In order to understand the nature of the lenses that generate microlensing events, one would like to measure their mass, distance, and velocity. Unfortunately, current microlensing experiments measure only one parameter of the events, the…
Galactic microlensing datasets now comprise in excess of $10^4$ events, and with the advent of next generation microlensing surveys that may be undertaken with facilities such as the Rubin Observatory (formerly LSST) and Roman Space…
Gravitational microlensing has the potential to provide direct gravitational masses of single, free-floating brown dwarfs, independent of evolutionary and atmospheric models. The proper motions and parallaxes of nearby brown dwarfs can be…
We present the first results from our next-generation microlensing survey, the SuperMACHO project. We are using the CTIO 4m Blanco telescope and the MOSAIC imager to carry out a search for microlensing toward the Large Magellanic Cloud…