Related papers: The microlensing rate and mass function vs. dynami…
Non-uniqueness of deprojecting the integrated light distribution of a nearby or faraway triaxial body is reviewed in the context of deriving the volume density of the Galactic bar from the COBE/DIRBE maps of the Galactic plane. The exact…
Given the number of recently discovered galaxy-galaxy lens systems, we anticipate that a gravitationally lensed supernova will be observed within the next few years. We explore the possibility that stars in the lens galaxy will produce…
We present a study of the effect of bulge mass on the evolution of bar pattern speed in isolated disk galaxies using N-body simulations. Earlier studies have shown that disk stars at the inner resonances can transfer a significant amount of…
Our Galaxy is a barred spiral. Recent work based on the COBE NIR data implies a small bulge-bar and a disk with a short scale-length. The corotation radius of the bar is in the range 3-4.5 kpc. The stellar density distribution beyond the…
A constant stellar mass-to-light ratio $M_\star/L$ has been widely-used in studies of galaxy dynamics and strong lensing, which aim at disentangling the mass distributions of dark matter and baryons. However, systematic biases arising from…
A precise determination of the local dark matter density and an accurate control over the corresponding uncertainties are of paramount importance for Dark Matter (DM) searches. Using very recent high-resolution numerical simulations of a…
This article summarizes recent work on the luminosity and mass distribution of the Galactic bulge and disk, and on the mass of the Milky Way's dark halo. A new luminosity model consistent with the COBE NIR data and the apparent magnitude…
We present detailed maps of the microlensing optical depth and event density over an area of 195 sq. deg towards the Galactic bulge. The maps are computed from synthetic stellar catalogues generated from the Besancon Galaxy Model, which…
I review our understanding of classic dynamical scaling relations, relating luminosity, size and kinematics of early-type galaxies. Using unbiased determinations of galaxy mass profiles from stellar dynamical models, a simple picture has…
The detection of microlensing has opened the way for the development of new methods in galactic astronomy. This series of papers investigates what microlensing can teach us about the structure and shape of the dark halo. In this paper we…
The 2-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) (Skrutskie et al. 1997) and the DEep Near Infrared Survey of the southern sky (DENIS) (Epchtein et al. 1997) have revealed a heretofore unknown population of free brown dwarfs that has extended the local…
We analyze an ensemble of microlensing events from the 2015 Spitzer microlensing campaign, all of which were densely monitored by ground-based high-cadence survey teams. The simultaneous observations from Spitzer and the ground yield…
We generalize to elliptical models the argument of Kuijken (1997), which connects the microlensing optical depth towards the Galactic bulge to the Galactic rotation curve. When applied to the latest value from the MACHO collaboration for…
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…
Gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics provide two complementary, nearly orthogonal, constraints on the mass distribution of early-type lens galaxies. This allows the luminous and dark-matter distribution in higher-redshift (z>0.1)…
The microlensing parallax campaign with the $Spitzer$ space telescope aims to measure masses and distances of microlensing events seen towards the Galactic bulge, with a focus on planetary microlensing events. The hope is to measure how the…
At any instant, there are roughly 1000 ongoing microlensing events to sources brighter than 20th magnitude in the Milky Way Galaxy. Large-scale maps of the microlensing optical depth and the mean timescale are constructed for a number of…
We determine the microlensing event rate distribution, $\Gamma(t_{E})$, that is properly normalized by the first year MACHO group observations (Alcock et al. 1997). By comparing the determined $\Gamma(t_{E})$ with various MF models of lens…
We analyze the role of bars in the build-up of central mass concentrations in massive, disk galaxies. Our parent sample consists of 3757 face-on disk galaxies with redshifts between 0.01 and 0.05, selected from the seventh Data Release of…
The gravitational microlensing as a unique astrophysical tool can be used for studying the atmosphere of stars thousands of parsec far from us. This capability results from the bending of light rays in the gravitational field of a lens…