Related papers: The Milky Way Galaxy as a Strong Gravitational Len…
We investigate gravitational lensing by a realistic model of disk galaxies. Most of the mass is contained in a large spherical isothermal dark matter halo, but the potential is modified significantly in the core by a…
We study gravitational lensing by spiral galaxies, using realistic models consisting of halo, disk, and bulge components combined to produce a flat rotation curve. Proper dynamical normalization of the models is critical because a disk…
Spheroidal components of spiral galaxies have been considered the only dynamically important component in gravitational lensing studies thus far. Here we point out that including the disk component can have a significant effect, depending…
Cosmologists have often considered the Milky Way as a typical spiral galaxy, and its properties have considerably influenced the current scheme of galaxy formation. Here we compare the general properties of the Milky Way disk and halo with…
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…
We study the vertical stellar distribution of the Milky Way thin disk in detail with particular focus on the outer disk. We treat the galactic disk as a gravitationally coupled, three-component system consisting of stars, atomic hydrogen…
Numerical models of disc galaxy formation predict the existence of extended, hot ( T~10^6 K) gas haloes around present day spirals. The X-ray luminosity of these haloes is predicted to increase strongly with galaxy mass. However, searches…
The Milky Way galaxy is a typical spiral galaxy which consists of a black hole in its centre, a barred bulge and a disk which contains spiral arms. The complex structure of the Galaxy makes it extremely difficult and challenging to model…
We study strong gravitational lensing by spiral galaxies, modeling them as infinitely thin uniform disks embedded in singular isothermal spheres. We derive general properties of the critical curves and caustics analytically. The…
Stars and their kinematics provide one of the tools available for studies of the shapes of galaxies and their halos. In this review I focus on two specific applications: the shape of the Milky Way dark halo and the shape of the LMC disk.…
The degeneracy between the disk and the dark matter contribution to galaxy rotation curves remains an important uncertainty in our understanding of disk galaxies. Here we discuss a new method for breaking this degeneracy using gravitational…
The shape and orientation of the Milky Way's dark matter halo remain poorly constrained. Observations of the accreted stellar halo show that it is triaxial and tilted with respect to the disc. If this configuration is long-lived, it can…
The high-magnification gravitational lensing cross-section of a galaxy is enhanced significantly if a baryonic disc is embedded in its dark matter halo. We investigate the effects of a population of such disks on the probability of…
The Milky Way is often considered to be the best example of a spiral for which the dark matter not only dominates the outer kinematics, but also plays a major dynamical role in the inner galaxy: the Galactic disk is therefore said to be…
Galaxies are thought to grow through accretion; as less massive galaxies are disrupted and merge over time, their debris results in diffuse, clumpy stellar halos enveloping the central galaxy. Here we present a study of the variation in the…
In this paper we model the vertical structure of mass distribution of the Milky Way galaxy in the framework of a finite-width global disk model. Assuming the Galactic rotation curve only, we test inside the solar orbit the predictions of…
Gravitational lensing of a quasar by a spiral galaxy should often be accompanied by damped Lyman-alpha absorption and dust extinction due to the intervening gaseous disk. In nearly edge-on configurations, the surface mass density of the gas…
The extended hot X-ray emitting gaseous halo of the Milky Way has an optical depth $\sim1$ for the dominant emission lines of \ion{O}{7} and \ion{O}{8}, which are used to infer the halo properties. To improve on halo gas properties, we…
We investigate the gravitational lensing properties of dark matter halos with Burkert profiles. We derive an analytic expression for the lens equation and use it to compute the magnification, impact parameter and image separations for…
Observations reveal that mature spiral galaxies consist of stars, gases and plasma approximately distributed in a thin disk of circular shape, usually with a central bulge. The rotation velocities quickly increase from the galactic center…