Related papers: How to find MACHOs in the Virgo Cluster
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…
Galaxy clusters constitute powerful cosmological probes thanks to comparisons between observed and simulated clusters. As such Virgo constitutes a formidable source for detailed observations facilitated by its proximity. However, the…
If cluster dark matter is in the form of compact objects it will introduce fluctuations into the light curves of distant sources. Current searches for MACHOs in clusters of galaxies focus on monitoring quasars behind nearby systems. This…
Recent observations of microlensing events in the Large Magellanic Cloud by the MACHO and EROS collaborations suggest that an important fraction of the galactic halo is in form of Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs) with…
The observed infall of galaxies into the Virgo Cluster puts strong constraints on the mass of the cluster. A non-parametric fully non-linear description of the infall can be made with orbit reconstructions based on Numerical Action Methods.…
Globular clusters are found usually in galaxies and they are an excellent tracer of dark matter. Long ago it was suggested that there may exist intracluster globular clusters (IGCs) bound to a galaxy cluster rather than to any single…
We report preliminary results from a first season of photometric monitoring of 600 quasars behind the Virgo galaxy cluster with the aim of detecting microlensing by the cluster dark matter. Our project is sensitive to dark objects of…
Aims. This work considers the Virgo cluster of galaxies, focusing on its structure, kinematics, and morphological landscape. Our principal aim is to estimate the virial mass of the cluster. For this purpose, we present a sample of 1537…
The MACHO project has been monitoring about ten million stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud in the search for gravitational microlensing events caused by massive compact halo objects (Machos) in the halo of the Milky Way. In our standard…
It has been suspected for nearly 50 years that clusters of galaxies contain a population of intergalactic stars, ripped from galaxies during cluster formation or when the galaxies' orbits take them through the cluster center. Support for…
Recent observations of microlensing events in the Large Magellanic Cloud suggest that a sizeable fraction of the galactic halo is in form of MACHOs with mass less than abou 0.1 M_{\odot}. Here we argue that molecular clouds (mainly H_2)…
The failure to find evidence for elementary particles that could serve as the constituents of dark matter brings to mind suggestions that dark matter might consist of massive compact objects (MACHOs). In particular, it has recently been…
Current microlensing searches calibrate the mass fraction of the Milky Way halo which is in the form of Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). We show that surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) can probe the same quantity in…
We present 47 spectroscopically-confirmed quasars discovered behind the Magellanic Clouds identified via photometric variability in the MACHO database. Thirty-eight quasars lie behind the Large Magellanic Cloud and nine behind the Small…
Recent observations of microlensing events in the Large Magellanic Cloud suggest that a sizable fraction of the galactic halo is in the form of Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). Although the average MACHO mass is…
We have searched the Forth Catalogue of Nearby Stars for halo stars and identified 15 subdwarfs and a high velocity white dwarf in the solar neighbourhood. This search was motivated mainly by the recent determinations of MACHO masses of…
We present a survey of X-ray point sources in the nearest and dynamically young galaxy cluster, Virgo, using archival Chandra observations that sample the vicinity of 80 early-type member galaxies. The X-ray source populations at the…
Six different distance determination methods of Virgo cluster members yield a mean distance modulus of (m-M)^0(Virgo) = 31.60 +/- 0.09 (20.9 +/- 0.9 Mpc). This value can be carried out to > 10,000 km/s by means of 31 clusters whose…
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…
MAssive Compact Halo Objects such as brown dwarfs, Jupiters, and black holes are prime candidates to comprise the dark halo of our galaxy. Paczynski noted that objects (dubbed MACHOs) with masses in the range $10^{-6}M_\odot < M \simlt 100…