Related papers: Variable Stars in the MACHO Collaboration Database
Thanks to observations at the ESO VLT with the GIRAFFE multifibers spectrograph, we have obtained spectra of 177 and 346 B-type stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds respectively. We have discovered 25 and 90 new Be stars among the…
The initial results of microlensing surveys toward the Galactic bulge and the LMC are puzzling. Toward the LMC, the total mass in MACHOs is of order half that required to explain the dark matter, but the estimated MACHO mass (~0.4 Msun) is…
The historical microlensing surveys MACHO, EROS, MOA and OGLE (hereafter summarized in the MEMO acronym) have searched for microlensing toward the LMC for a total duration of 27 years. We have studied the potential of joining all databases…
To reveal the galactic dark matter in the form of MACHOs ("Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects"), the POINT-AGAPE collaboration is carrying out a search for gravitational microlensing towards M31. A clear microlensing signal is…
In the past few years, the Magellanic Clouds have been the targets for several major variable star surveys. The results of these surveys are now becoming available and it is clear that a Renaissance in LMC and SMC variable star research…
We propose a radial velocity survey with the aim to resolve the current dispute on the LMC lensing: in the pro-macho hypothesis the lenses are halo white dwarfs or machos in general; in the pro-star hypothesis both the lenses and the…
We report on our search for microlensing towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Analysis of 5.7 years of photometry on 11.9 million stars in the LMC reveals 13 - 17 microlensing events. This is significantly more than the $\sim$ 2 to 4…
We observed a field in the disk of the LMC on two consecutive nights in search of rapid variable stars. We have found two pulsating stars of type RRab and delta Sct, and four binary stars, among the latter one sdB or CV below the LMC blue…
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…
Foundations of standard theory of microlensing are described, namely we consider microlensing stars in Galactic bulge, the Magellanic Clouds or other nearby galaxies. We suppose that gravitational microlenses lie between an Earth observer…
This work presents the first large-scale photometric variability survey of the intermediate age (~200 Myr) open cluster M11. Thirteen nights of data over two observing seasons were analyzed (using crowded field and ensemble photometry…
Observations by the MACHO collaboration suggest that a significant proportion of the galactic halo dark matter is in the form of compact objects with typical masses $M\sim 0.5M_{\odot}$. One of the current mysteries is the nature and origin…
We discuss a possible method for detection of dark companions of galactic objects of stellar mass. Such binary systems are likely to occur in the galactic disk and possibly also in the halo. The high incidence of binary and…
The status of the microlensing search for galactic dark matter in the form of massive astronomical compact halo objects (machos) is reviewed. Unresolved issues are discussed, as well as possible ways to solve these.
Dark matter may be in the form of non-baryonic structures such as compact subhalos and boson stars. Structures weighing between asteroid and solar masses may be discovered via gravitational microlensing, an astronomical probe that has in…
Traditional evidence for large amount of dark matter is based on dynamical consideration for systems with $ t_{dyn} \gg t_{obs} $. Recent observational and theoretical developments in gravitational lensing offer a much more robust…
We present a new sample of 4634 eclipsing binary stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), expanding on a previous sample of 611 objects and a new sample of 1509 eclipsing binary stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), that were…
We present the first edition of a catalog of variable stars found in the Magellanic Clouds using OGLE-II data obtained during four years: 1997-2000. The catalog covers about 7 square degrees of the sky - 21 fields in the Large Magellanic…
The simplest interpretation of the microlensing events towards the Large Magellanic Cloud detected by the MACHO and EROS collaborations is that about one third of the halo of our own Milky Way galaxy exists in the form of objects of around…
If compact baryonic objects contribute significantly to the dark matter in our Galaxy, their mass function will present vital clues for galaxy formation theories and star formation processes in the early Universe. Here we discuss what one…