Related papers: Is the Large Magellanic Cloud a Large Microlensing…
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…
In this contribution I will present the current status of our project of stellar population analyses and spatial information of both Magellanic Clouds (MCs). The Magellanic Clouds - especially the LMC with its large size and small depth…
We investigate the possibility of determining whether microlensing objects towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) are in a Galactic thick disc, or are in a Galactic halo, by using parallax measurements with an Earth-radius scale baseline.…
The Dark Energy Camera has captured a large set of images as part of Science Verification (SV) for the Dark Energy Survey. The SV footprint covers a lar ge portion of the outer Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), providing photometry 1.5…
Stellar streams are excellent probes of the underlying gravitational potential in which they evolve. In this work, we fit dynamical models to five streams in the Southern Galactic hemisphere, combining observations from the Southern Stellar…
The number of star clusters that populate the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) at deprojected distances < 4 deg has been recently found to be nearly double the known size of the system. Because of the unprecedented consequences of this outcome…
We obtain models for a triaxial Milky Way spheroid based on data by Newberg and Yanny. The best fits to the data occur for a spheroid center that is shifted by 3kpc from the Galactic Center. We investigate effects of the triaxiality on the…
The dark matter in Galactic halos, or some fraction of it, may be in the form of dark clusters which consist of small mass objects. Carr & Lacey (1987) have derived the permissible properties of such systems, and proposed the existence of…
The optical depth to microlensing toward M31 due to known stars in the disk of M31 itself is $\tau\sim 2\times 10^{-7}e^{-r/d}$ where $d$ is the disk scale length and $r$ is the distance along the major axis. Thus, there can be significant…
The infall of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) into the Milky Way's halo impacts the distribution of stars and dark matter in our Galaxy. Mapping the observational consequences of this encounter can inform us about the properties of both…
One of the major limitations of microlensing observations toward the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the low rate of event detection. What can be done to improve this rate? Is it better to invest telescope time in more frequent observations…
We present a detailed study of the viewing angles of the LMC disk plane. We find that our viewing direction differs considerably from the commonly accepted values, which has important implications for the structure of the LMC. The…
The Magellanic Mopra Assessment (MAGMA) is a high angular resolution CO mapping survey of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds using the Mopra Telescope. Here we report on the basic physical properties of…
We present an analysis of the longest timescale microlensing events discovered by the MACHO Collaboration during a 7 year survey of the Galactic bulge. We find 6 events that exhibit very strong microlensing parallax signals due, in part, to…
We investigate the dynamical and chemical evolution of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) interacting with the Galaxy and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) based on a series of self-consistent chemodynamical simulations. Our numerical models…
We place observational constraints on a recently proposed Galactic population, dubbed the shroud (Gyuk & Gates 1999, Gates & Gyuk 2001). The shroud would be a very thick Galactic disk of low luminosity objects, most likely old white dwarfs,…
We report the first discovery of a gravitational microlensing candidate towards a new population of source stars, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The candidate event's light curve shows no variation for 3 years before an upward excursion…
The microlensing probability (optical depth $\tau$) toward the Galactic center carries information about the mass distribution of the Galactic bulge/bar, so can be used to constrain the very uncertain shape parameters of the bar. We find…
The EROS-2 collaboration has conducted a survey of the Magellanic Clouds between July 1996 and February 2003 (6.7 years), in order to search for microlensing phenomena due to putative machos (massive astronomical compact halo objects).…
We present a new distance determination to the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds using the newly developed red clump stars method (Paczynski and Stanek 1998). This new, single-step, Hipparcos calibrated method seems to be one of the most…