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The mass assembly history of the Milky Way can inform both theory of galaxy formation and the underlying cosmological model. Thus, observational constraints on the properties of both its baryonic and dark matter contents are sought. Here we…

A new type of gravitational microlensing experiment toward a field where stars are not resolved is being developed observationally and theoretically: pixel lensing. When the experiment is carried out toward the M31 bulge area, events may be…

The distribution of dark matter around galactic or cluster halos has usually been assumed to be approximately isothermal with a non-zero core radius, which is expected to be of the order of the size of the visible matter distribution.…

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…

By means of extensive galactic modeling we study the implications of the more than eighty microlensing events that have now been observed for the composition of the dark halo of the Galaxy, as well as for other properties of the Galaxy. We…

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…

We examine the most recent observational constraints arising from i) small-scale and large-scale Galactic dynamical properties, ii) star counts at faint magnitude and iii) microlensing experiments. From these constraints, we determine the…

We report the discovery of diffuse ultraviolet light around late-type galaxies out to 5-20 kpc from the midplane using Swift and GALEX images. The emission is consistent with the stellar outskirts in the early-type galaxies but not in the…

We present observations of the luminous population of high-redshift sub-mm galaxies taken at the OVRO Millimeter Array. Studies of sub-mm galaxies are vital to our understanding of the formation and early evolution of galaxies since this…

We report the results of a systematic photometric survey of the peripheral regions of a sample of fourteen globular clusters in the outer halo of the Milky Way at distances d_GC>25 kpc from the Galactic centre. The survey is aimed at…

Cosmological nucleosynthesis calculations imply that many of the baryons in the Universe must be dark. We discuss the likelihood that some of these dark baryons may reside in galaxies as Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs), the remnants…

The nature of the dark matter in the Universe is one of the outstanding questions in astrophysics. In this talk, I address possible stellar baryonic contributions to the 50-90% of our Galaxy that is made of unknown dark matter. First I show…

Having ruled out the possibility that stellar objects are the main contributor of the dark matter embedding galaxies, microlensing experiments cannot exclude the hypothesis that a significant fraction of the Milky Way dark halo might be…

We describe a few recent microlensing results from the MACHO Collaboration. The aim of the MACHO Project was the identification and quantitative description of dark and luminous matter in the Milky Way using microlensing toward the…

About one year ago, it was speculated that decaying or annihilating Light Dark Matter (LDM) particles could explain the flux and extension of the 511 keV line emission in the galactic centre. Here we present a thorough comparison between…

As a result of their internal dynamical coherence, thin stellar streams formed by disrupting globular clusters (GCs) can act as detectors of dark matter (DM) substructure in the Galactic halo. Perturbations induced by close flybys amplify…

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…

The flat rotation curve obtained for the outer star clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud is suggestive of an LMC dark matter halo. From the composite HI and star cluster rotation curve, I estimate the parameters of an isothermal dark…

The Fermi satellite has recently detected gamma ray emission from the central regions of our Galaxy. This may be evidence for dark matter particles, a major component of the standard cosmological model, annihilating to produce high-energy…

The nature of the Massive Compact Halo objects seen in microlensing experiments and interpreted as dark matter in the Halo of our Galaxy remains a mystery. Arguments are presented that these events are probably not ordinary stellar or…