VVV Microlensing events around the Galactic Center

Abstract: We discovered ~1,000 microlensing events within an area covering 20.68 deg^2 between 2010 and 2015 in the zero-latitude region of the Galactic bulge using the VVV Survey near-IR data. We used the near-IR Color-Magnitude and Color-Color Diagram to analyze the extinction properties of the sample in the central region of the Galactic plane. We study the Einstein ring crossing time distribution as a strong dark mass indicator and study features of the Galactic structure. We found 20 distant microlensing events probably located in the far disk of the Galaxy. This is the first time that a population of events has been discovered which allows us to study the other side of the Milky Way. We also examine specific events such as the long timescale events showing parallax that favor the presence of dark stellar remnants such as black holes and neutron stars, which are essential ingredients in our understanding of stellar evolution and mass distribution, galaxy evolution and structure, dark matter balance, etc.