Related papers: What are MACHOs? Interpreting LMC microlensing
The main aim of microlensing experiments is to evaluate the mean mass of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) and the mass fraction of the Galactic halo made by this type of dark matter. Statistical analysis shows that by considering a…
The interpretation of microlensing results towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) still remains controversial. Whereas white dwarfs have been proposed to explain these results and, hence, to contribute significantly to the mass budget of…
The interpretation of microlensing results towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) still remains controversial. White dwarfs have been proposed to explain these results and, hence, to contribute significantly to the mass budget of our…
The nature of the several microlensing events observed by the MACHO team towards the LMC still remains controversial. Low-mass substellar objects and stars with masses larger than ~1 M_{sun} have been ruled out as major components of a…
Microlensing results towards the LMC strongly depend on the properties of both the luminous and the dark matter distribution in the Galaxy. The two main sources of uncertainty come from the poor knowledge of the rotation curve at large…
The gravitational microlensing experiments in the direction of Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) predict a large amount of white dwarfs ($\sim 20%$) filling the galactic halo. However, the predicted white dwarfs have not been observed at the…
Having ruled out the possibility that stellar objects are the main contributor of the dark matter embedding galaxies, microlensing experiments cannot exclude the hypothesis that a significant fraction of the Milky Way dark halo might be…
Halo initial mass functions (IMFs), heavily-biased toward white dwarf (WD) precursors (i.e. 1->8 M_sun), have been suggested as a suitable mechanism for explaining microlensing statistics along the line of sight to the LMC. Such IMFs can…
We carry on a new analysis of the sample of MACHO microlensing candidates towards the LMC. Our main purpose is to determine the lens population to which the events may belong. We give particular emphasis to the possibility of characterizing…
The nature and the location of the lenses discovered in the microlensing surveys done so far towards the LMC remain unclear. Motivated by these questions we computed the optical depth for the different intervening populations and the number…
A simple interpretation of the more than dozen microlensing events seen in the direction of the LMC is a halo population of MACHOs which accounts for about half of the mass of the Galaxy. Such an interpretation is not without its problems,…
The simplest interpretation of the microlensing events towards the Large Magellanic Cloud detected by the MACHO and EROS collaborations is that about one third of the halo of our own Milky Way galaxy exists in the form of objects of around…
The nature of the several microlensing events observed by the MACHO team towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is still a subject of debate. Low-mass substellar objects and stars with masses larger than ~M_{sun} have been ruled out as…
After a decade of gravitational microlensing experiments, a dozen of microlensing candidates in the direction of the stars of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) have been detected by the EROS and MACHO groups. Recently it was shown that the…
The evolution of the observational results of microlensing towards the LMC and some of the suggested interpretations to account for them are discussed. It is emphasized that the results at present are indicative of a lensing population of…
Microlensing events towards the Large Magellanic Cloud entail that a sizable fraction of dark matter is in the form of MACHOs (Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects), presumably located in the halo of the Galaxy. Within the present…
The microlensing experiments in the direction of the LMC seem to be indicating that about 60% of the dark matter in the Galactic halo is tied up in objects whose masses are about half the mass of the Sun. This mass is a natural one for old…
The nature of the Massive Compact Halo objects seen in microlensing experiments and interpreted as dark matter in the Halo of our Galaxy remains a mystery. Arguments are presented that these events are probably not ordinary stellar or…
If the Universe has a significant baryonic dark component in the form of compact objects in galaxy halos (machos), then there is a minute chance (about $10^{-7}$) that one of the Galactic machos passes sufficiently close to our line of…
We discuss the implications of the recent upward revision of the LMC microlensing rate by the MACHO Collaboration. We conclude: (i) A good case for the existence of baryonic dark matter in the halo has been made; (ii) The case for the…