M31: A Unique Laboratory for Halo Microlensing

M31：独特的 Halo 微透镜实验室

• 批准号: 9802984
• 负责人: Arlin P. Crotts
• 金额: $ 3.09万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-07-01 至 2002-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9802984&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: M31; Unique; Laboratory; Halo; Microlensing

AST 98-02984 Arlin P. Crotts The PI is continuing a survey of gravitational microlensing of stars in M31. This complements the surveys for MACHOs (massive compact halo objects) in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Galactic Bulge. The PI has already constructed the major hardware for this effort, has written the software to find variable stars in highly crowded fields, and has large blocks of telescope time at the 1.8 meter Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope and the MDM 1.3 meter telescope. Using M31 to search for MACHOs is particularly interesting because it is the only external spiral galaxy that can be successfully probed for dark matter in this way. It is different from the Galaxy in that sightlines through the halo have associated with them a possibly high optical depth (or probability per star) of halo microlensing. This promises to produce a stronger halo lensing signal that the Galactic case. Furthermore, this signal is variable across the face of the galaxy, and this can be used to further constrain halo dark matter distribution models. It is likely that this localization of the halo mass will also lead to better estimates of the source-lens-observer geometry, and hence the component masses of the objects acting as lenses ***

AST 98-02984 Arlin P. Crotts PI正在继续对M31中恒星的引力微透镜进行调查。 这补充了对大麦哲伦星云和银河系隆起方向的MACHO（大质量致密晕天体）的调查。 PI已经为这项工作建造了主要的硬件，编写了在高度拥挤的领域寻找变星的软件，并在1.8米梵蒂冈先进技术望远镜和MDM 1.3米望远镜上拥有大量的望远镜时间。 使用M31来寻找MACHO是特别有趣的，因为它是唯一可以通过这种方式成功探测暗物质的外部螺旋星系。 它与银河系的不同之处在于，通过光环的视线与它们可能的高光学深度（或每颗星星的概率）的光环微透镜有关。 这有望产生比银河系更强的光环透镜信号。 此外，这个信号在星系表面是可变的，这可以用来进一步限制晕暗物质分布模型。 晕圈质量的这种局部化也可能导致对源-透镜-观测者几何结构的更好估计，从而导致对充当透镜的物体的分量质量的更好估计。 ***