One of the most important puzzles in modern astrophysics is the nature of dark matter. Stellar streams, formed by tidal stripping of the stars from globular clusters or dwarf galaxies, behave as a... Show moreOne of the most important puzzles in modern astrophysics is the nature of dark matter. Stellar streams, formed by tidal stripping of the stars from globular clusters or dwarf galaxies, behave as a group of test particles allowing us to measure the Milky Way’s dark matter content and, therefore, offering us a key to understanding its nature. Open clusters, loosely bound groups of stars that move through the Galaxy together, are, in contrast, an important driver of stellar evolution research. This Thesis presents our studies of these Galactic substructures and the conclusions we can draw on the larger Universe and physics based on these local observations. In chapters 2 - 4, we apply a novel method to map the Milky Way’s dark matter content using stellar streams, taking care to understand the various possible contributors to the systematics. Chapter 5 is dedicated to the study of the Hyades open cluster. Show less
This is an erratum to the paper ‘Galactic potential constraints from clustering in action space of combined stellar stream data’ (Reino et al. 2021). In the original paper, there were errors in our... Show moreThis is an erratum to the paper ‘Galactic potential constraints from clustering in action space of combined stellar stream data’ (Reino et al. 2021). In the original paper, there were errors in our action-space probability density estimates when considering multiple streams in combination. The errors do not stem from our overall procedure but from a technical limitation of our density estimator, that was not known to us, or the author of the density estimator, a priori. Show less
