Related papers: A quest for weak objects and for invisible stars
In about last couple of decades, the inference of the violation of the Chandrasekhar mass-limit of white dwarfs from indirect observation is probably a revolutionary discovery in astronomy. Various researchers have already proposed…
The weak gravitational lensing of high redshift type Ia supernovae has the potential of probing the structure of matter on galaxy halo scales. This is complementary to the weak lensing of galaxies which probes structure of larger scales.…
The project Massive Unseen Companions to Hot Faint Underluminous Stars from SDSS (MUCHFUSS) aims at finding hot subdwarf stars with massive compact companions like massive white dwarfs (M > 1.0 Msun), neutron stars or stellar mass black…
Sun-like stars can transmute into comparable mass black holes by steadily accumulating heavy non-annihilating dark matter particles over the course of their lives. If such stars form in binary systems, they could give rise to…
Astrophysical observations provide strong evidence that more than 80% of all matter in the Universe is in the form of dark matter (DM). Two leading candidates of particles beyond the Standard Model that could constitute all or a fraction of…
In order to directly image an extrasolar planet, the large contrast between a star and a companion planet must be overcome. White Dwarfs (WDs) are the remnants of stars > 1 M_sun and are orders of magnitude dimmer, making searches for…
The Stromlo Missing Satellites (SMS) program is a critical endeavor to investigate whether cold dark matter cosmology is flawed in its ability to describe the matter distribution on galaxy scales or proves itself once again as a powerful…
In the cosmological paradigm, cold dark matter (DM) dominates the mass content of the Universe and is present at every scale. Candidates for DM include many extensions of the standard model, such as weakly interacting massive particles…
This paper presents a review of the history, motivation and current status of high energy neutrino telescopes. Many years after these detectors were first conceived, the operation of kilometer-cubed scale detectors is finally on the horizon…
A generic feature of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter models is the emission of photons over a broad energy band resulting from the stable yields of dark matter pair annihilation. Inverse Compton scattering off cosmic…
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.
Low mass white dwarfs are the remnants of disrupted red giant stars in binary millisecond pulsars and other exotic binary star systems. Some low mass white dwarfs cool rapidly, while others stay bright for millions of years due to stable…
Interacting binaries containing white dwarfs can lead to a variety of outcomes that range from powerful thermonuclear explosions, which are important in the chemical evolution of galaxies and as cosmological distance estimators, to strong…
Compact objects are the name used to classify the following objects: white dwarf, neutron star and black holes. In addition to them, some authors have suggested that in the core of a neutron star we may have the quarks u,d,s and c. In this…
This paper describes outstanding issues in astrophysics and cosmology that can be solved by astronomical observations in a broad spectral range from far infrared to millimeter wavelengths. The discussed problems related to the formation of…
Although rare, massive stars, being the main sources of ionizing radiation, chemical enrichment and mechanical energy in the Galaxy, are the most important objects of the stellar population. This review presents the many different aspects…
Dark matter is a vital component of the current best model of our universe, $\Lambda$CDM. There are leading candidates for what the dark matter could be (e.g. weakly-interacting massive particles, or axions), but no compelling observational…
We consider the possibility of constraining decaying dark matter by looking out through the Milky Way halo. Specifically we use Chandra blank sky observations to constrain the parameter space of sterile neutrinos. We find that a broad band…
Deep infrared and optical images are presented of three proposed remnants of Thorne-Zytkow Objects (TZO). In particular, the IR data go several infrared magnitudes deeper than previous observations and in at least one case reveal the…
How confident are we that all of the nearest white dwarfs (WDs) have been identified? In an effort to answer this question, we have begun an initiative to identify and characterize new nearby WDs, particularly in the southern hemisphere. We…