LMC Microlenses: Dark or Luminous?
| dc.creator | Gould, Andrew | |
| dc.date | 1997-09-25 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T02:24:19Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T02:24:19Z | |
| dc.description | Zhao has proposed that the microlensing events observed toward the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could be due to faint stars in a dwarf galaxy or tidal debris lying along the line of sight to the LMC. Zaritsky & Lin claim to have detected such a structure which, they believe, could account for most of the observed microlensing optical depth. Here I show that a large-area surface-brightness map made by de Vaucouleurs constrains any such structure to one of four possibilities. Either 1) it does not account for a significant fraction of the observed microlensing, 2) it covers the inner ~3 degrees of the LMC but does not extend beyond ~5 degrees from the LMC center, 3) it is smooth on scales of ~15 degrees in both transverse directions or 4) it has a stellar mass-to-light ratio which exceeds by a factor >10 that of known stellar populations. The second and third possibilities would not be expected to apply to tidal debris. The last merely rephrases the dark-matter problem in a new form. | |
| dc.description | 5 pages. No figures | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9709263 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9709263 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/11579 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | LMC Microlenses: Dark or Luminous? | |
| dc.type | text |