Related papers: Microlensing By a Prolate All-Macho Halo
Microlensing has established itself as a powerful new method for the detection of baryonic dark matter in the Galaxy. The theory of microlensing is sketched and its similarity with the optical effect of twinkling is explained. The bulk of…
We study different models of dark matter distribution for the halo of our galaxy. In particular, we consider Eddington and King-Michie models, which [C[C, which include anisotropy in the velocity space, and compute in a self-consistent way…
The MACHO Project is a search for dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (Machos). Photometric monitoring of millions of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and Galactic bulge is used to…
It has been shown by Paczy\'nski that gravitational microlensing is potentially a useful method for detecting the dark constituents of the halo of our galaxy, if their mass lies in the approximate domain $10^{-6} < M/M_{\odot} < 10^{-1}$.…
One of the most important problems in astrophysics concerns the nature of the dark matter in galactic halos, whose presence is implied mainly by the observed flat rotation curves in spiral galaxies. In the framework of a baryonic scenario…
We study the use of parallax microlensing to separate the effects of the mass function of dark massive halo objects (MHOs or `machos') on the one hand and their spatial distribution and kinematics on the other. This disentanglement is…
A galactic disk in a spiral galaxy is generally believed to be embedded in an extended dark matter halo, which dominates its dynamics in the outer parts. However, the shape of the halo is not clearly understood. Here we show that the dark…
The most accurate way to get information on the mass of the MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects) is to use the method of mass moments. For the microlensing events detected so far by the EROS and the MACHO collaborations in…
Using a sample of 89 snapshots from 58 hydrodynamic binary galaxy major merger simulations, we find that stellar remnants are mostly oblate while dark matter halos are mostly prolate or triaxial. The stellar minor axis and the halo major…
The motivation for this paper is to review the limits set on the MACHO content of the Galactic halo by microlensing experiments in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This has been prompted by recent measurements of the Galactic…
We present the basics of microlensing and give an overview of the results obtained so far. We also describe a scenario in which dark clusters of MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects) and cold molecular clouds (mainly of $H_2$)…
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 present the results from the OGLE-II survey (1996-2000) towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which has the aim of detecting the microlensing phenomena caused by dark matter compact objects in the Galactic Halo (Machos). We use high…
We present in this paper a simple method to obtain informations on galaxy models parameters using the measured value of the microlensing optical depth. Assuming a 100 percent MACHO's dark halo, we ask the predicted optical depth for a given…
The simplest interpretation of the microlensing events observed towards the Large Magellanic Clouds is that approximately half of the mass of the Milky Way halo is in the form of MAssive Compact Halo Objects with $M \sim 0.5 M_{\odot}$. It…
We obtain predictions for the properties of cold dark matter annihilation radiation using high resolution hydrodynamic zoom-in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies (APOSTLE project) carried out as part of the "Evolution and…
We carry on a new analysis of the sample of MACHO microlensing candidates towards the LMC. Our main purpose is to determine the lens population to which the events may belong. We give particular emphasis to the possibility of characterizing…
The observed microlensing events towards the LMC do not have yet a coherent explanation. If they are due to Galactic Halo objects, the nature of these objects is puzzling --- half the halo in dark 0.5 Msol objects. On the other hand,…
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…
The MACHO project is searching for dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (Machos), by monitoring the brightness of millions of stars in the Magellanic Clouds to search for gravitational microlensing events. Analysis of our…