English

Simulation of a strategy for the pixel lensing of M87 using the Hubble Space Telescope

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2015-05-30 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

In this work, we propose a new strategy for the pixel-lensing observation of M87 in the Virgo cluster using the {\it Hubble Space Telescope} (HST). In contrast to the previous observational strategy by Baltz et al., we show that a few days intensive observation with the duration of 90\sim 90 min in each HST orbit will increase the observational efficiency of the high-magnification events by more than one order of magnitude. We perform a Monte-Carlo simulation for this strategy and we show that the number of high magnification microlensing events will increase at the rate of 4.2 event per day with a typical transit time scale of 16 h. We also examine the possibility of observing mini-halo dark matter structures using pixel lensing.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1108.4187,
  title  = {Simulation of a strategy for the pixel lensing of M87 using the Hubble Space Telescope},
  author = {Sedighe Sajadian and Sohrab Rahvar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.4187},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

8 pages, 9 figures, accepted in MNRAS