Related papers: LMC Microlensing and Very Thick Disks
Gravitational microlensing constraints on non-standard compact objects are conventionally derived assuming lenses trace the dark matter halo with velocities following a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution centered around $10^{-3}c$. However, a…
We rediscuss the question of what fraction of the population of MACHOs in the halo of the Milky Way might be in the form of halo dwarfs, because recent determinations indicate masses of the MACHOs, which are typical for such stars. For this…
The recent astrometric data of hundreds of millions of stars from Gaia DR3 has allowed a precise determination of the Milky Way rotation curve up to $28$~kpc. The data suggests a rapid decline in the density of dark matter beyond $19$~kpc.…
In the framework of the search of dark matter in galactic halos in form of massive compact halo object (MACHOs), we discuss the status of microlensing observations towards the Magellanic Clouds and the Andromeda galaxy, M31. The detection…
As part of a stellar population sampling program, a series of photometric probes at various field sizes and depths have been obtained in a low extinction window in the galactic anticentre direction. Very deep CCD frames probe the most…
We propose that the massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) observed in the recent microlensing experiments with an apparent best fit mass of about $0.5 M_{\odot}$ are objects made out of ``mirror'' baryonic matter rather than familiar…
If the halo of the lensing galaxy 0957+561 is made of massive compact objects (MACHOs), they must affect the lightcurves of the quasar images Q0957+561 A and B differently. We search for this microlensing effect in the double quasar by…
The cold dark matter (CDM) scenario generically predicts the existence of triaxial dark matter haloes which contain notable amounts of substructure. However, analytical halo models with smooth, spherically symmetric density profiles are…
Galaxy group masses are important to relate these systems with the dark matter halo hosts. However, deriving accurate mass estimates is particularly challenging for low-mass galaxy groups. Moreover, calibration of bservational mass-proxies…
The statistics of wide-separation (6'' < theta < 15'') gravitational lenses constrain the amount of mass in the cores of dark matter halos on group and cluster mass scales. For a family of halo models with a central cusp $\rho \propto…
We explore the lowest mass limit that can be placed on the halo mass function in CDM using 28 strong gravitational lenses. For this purpose, we study an extreme model in which the halo mass function and mass-concentration relation follow…
There is good evidence that most of the baryons in the Universe are dark and some evidence that most of the matter in the Universe is nonbaryonic with cold dark matter (cdm) being a promising possibility. We discuss expectations for the…
We consider a thickness of stellar disks of late-type galaxies by analyzing the R and K_s band photometric profiles for two independent samples of edge-on galaxies. The main goal is to verify a hypotesis that a thickness of old stellar…
Locating the centers of dark matter halos is critical for understanding the mass profiles of halos as well as the formation and evolution of the massive galaxies that they host. The task is observationally challenging because we cannot…
We establish constraints on the mass and abundance of black holes in the Galactic halo by determining their impact on globular clusters which are conventionally considered to be little evolved. Using detailed Monte Carlo simulations and…
The most important uncertainty in the results of gravitational microlensing experiments comes from the difficulties of photometry caused by blending of source stars. Recently Nemiroff (1997) pointed out that the results of microlensing…
Our work is based on the stacked weak-lensing analysis of a sample of 80 strong-lensing galaxy groups. Our main results are the following: (i) the lensing signal does not allow us to firmly reject a simple singular isothermal sphere mass…
We present first results from a program to measure the chemical abundances of a large (N>30) sample of thick disk stars with the principal goal of investigating the formation history of the Galactic thick disk. Our analysis confirms…
MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects) - as discovered by microlensing experiments towards the LMC - provide a natural explanation for the galactic halo dark matter. A realistic possibility is that MACHOs are brown dwarfs of…
Disk galaxies are common in our universe and this is a source of concern for hierarchical formation models like LCDM. Here we investigate this issue as motivated by raw merger statistics derived for galaxy-size dark matter halos from LCDM…