Gravitational microlensing as a method of detecting disk dark matter and faint disk stars

Griest, K.; Alcock, C.; Axelrod, T. S.; Bennett, D. P.; Cook, K. H.; Freeman, K. C.; Park, Hyesook; Perlmutter, S.; Peterson, Bruce A.; Quinn, Peter J.; Rodgers, A. W.; Stubbs, C. W.

doi:10.1086/186028

Cited by 121 publications

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“…The vast majority of the events have been discovered toward the Galactic bulge, and the total microlensing optical depth seen toward the bulge seems to be a factor of 13 larger than predicted (Griest et al 1991;Paczyński 1991). These results suggest that standard Galactic models are probably in need of revision (Paczyński et al 1994;Zhao, Spergel, & Rich 1994;Gould 1995), and this may have important implications for the interpretation of microlensing results toward the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) (Alcock et al 1995a;Aubourg et al 1995).…”

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confidence: 81%

First Observation of Parallax in a Gravitational Microlensing Event

Alcock¹,

Allsman²,

Alves³

et al. 1995

The Astrophysical Journal

205

109

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We present the first detection of parallax effects in a gravitational microlensing event. Parallax in a gravitational microlensing event observed only from the Earth appears as a distortion of the (otherwise symmetrical) light curve arising from the motion of the Earth around the Sun. This distortion can be detected if the event duration is not much less than a year and if the projected velocity of the lens is not much larger than the orbital velocity of the Earth about the Sun. The event presented here has a duration (or Einstein diameter crossing time) of t ϭ 220 days and clearly shows the distortion resulting from the Earth's motion. We find that the projected velocity of the lens is ṽϭ 75 H 5 km s Ϫ1 at an angle of 28Њ H 4Њ from the direction of increasing galactic longitude, as expected for a lens in the galactic disk.A likelihood analysis of this event yields estimates of the distance to and mass of the lens: D lens ϭ 1.7 Ϫ0.7 ϩ1.1 kpc and M ϭ 1.3 Ϫ0.6 ϩ1.3 M J . This suggests that the lens is a remnant such as a white dwarf or neutron star. It is possible, though less likely, that the lens is a main-sequence star. If so, we can add our upper limit on the observed flux from the lens to the analysis. This modifies the estimates to D lens ϭ 2.8 Ϫ0.6 ϩ1.1 kpc and M ϭ 0.6 Ϫ0.2 ϩ0.4 M J .

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mentioning

confidence: 81%

First Observation of Parallax in a Gravitational Microlensing Event

Alcock¹,

Allsman²,

Alves³

et al. 1995

The Astrophysical Journal

205

109

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“…He also wrote a theoretical paper [86] which was the first (simultaneous with a Paczynzki paper) to suggest that by monitoring stars in the Galactic Bulge one could detect stars gravitationally lensing other stars. The method Griest suggested is now the source of the huge numbers of microlensing events that astrophysicists use for many purposes today.…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Particle Physics-Final Report

Kuti

2013

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“…First, one can possibly discover extra-solar-system planets and binary stars this way (Mao and Paczyñski 1991). Second, and perhaps of wider interest, lensing can reveal brown dwarfs, cold white dwarfs, black holes, and other potential dark matter candidates in the halo of the Milky Way if they have masses between about 10 -6 and 100 Mq, corresponding to events that would last hours to years and amplify the lensecj star by a few tenths of a magnitude (Nemiroff 1991;Griest et al 1991;Krauss and Small 1991).…”

Section: The Year Of the Microlensmentioning

confidence: 99%

Astrophysics in 1991

Trimble¹

1992

PASP

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ABSTRACT. Science, notoriously, progresses amoeba-like, thrusting out pseudopods in unpredictable directions and dragging the rest of the body after or, occasionally, retreating in disorder. This review attempts to shine a narrow and not unprejudiced beam of light on areas of astrophysics where the author believes that something interesting happened in 1991. Length scales range from the kilometers of comets to the gigaparsecs of cosmology, and time scales from milliseconds upward. Eight selfcontained sections discuss the surface of Venus, late activity in Comet Halley, convective overshoot, blue stragglers, new examples and kinds of X-ray binaries and recycled pulsars, hard X and y rays from the galactic-center region, microlensing, and biased cold dark matter. The last two sections contain very short descriptions, with references, of a number of items that did not fit into the main sections but seemed a shame to leave out.

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Gravitational microlensing as a method of detecting disk dark matter and faint disk stars

Cited by 121 publications

References 0 publications

First Observation of Parallax in a Gravitational Microlensing Event

First Observation of Parallax in a Gravitational Microlensing Event

Particle Physics-Final Report

Astrophysics in 1991

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