U.S.-Australia Cooperative Research: The MACHO Project; A Search for Baryonic Dark Matter

该奖项支持一个由美国博士组成的团队进行为期三年的访问。劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室的Charles R. Alcock, Timothy Axelrod, David Bennett， Kem Cook和Hye-Sook Park。加州大学伯克利分校粒子天体物理中心的Kim Griest， Saul Perlmutter和Christopher Stubbs，与dr。澳大利亚国立大学斯特罗姆罗山和赛丁泉天文台的肯·弗里曼、布鲁斯·彼得森、彼得·奎因和亚历克斯·罗杰斯。研究小组正在开发一个专门的系统，他们将通过这个系统对被称为macos（大质量致密光晕物体，如褐矮星和木星）的大质量物体进行明确的搜索，这些物体可能包含银河系光晕中的暗物质。在“标准的”大爆炸核合成理论中，宇宙中必须存在一些重子暗物质：这些物质可能包含在macho中。研究人员将在四年的时间里，每晚对多达300万颗麦哲伦星云（或银河系凸起）的恒星进行光度测量，以探测这些恒星因引力微透镜效应而偶尔放大的现象。

This award supports visits over three years by a U.S. team, consisting of Drs. Charles R. Alcock, Timothy Axelrod, David Bennett, Kem Cook, and Hye-Sook Park of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Drs. Kim Griest, Saul Perlmutter, and Christopher Stubbs of the Center for Particle Astrophysics, University of California Berkeley, to collaborate with Drs. Ken Freeman, Bruce Peterson, Peter Quinn, and Alex Rodgers of the Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, Australian National University. The team of investigators is developing a dedicated system with which they will conduct a definitive search for massive objects known as MACHOs (Massive Compact Halo Objects, such as brown dwarfs and Jupiters), which plausibly might comprise the dark matter in the halo of the Milky Way galaxy. In "standard" Big-Bang nucleosynthesis theory, the presence in the universe of some baryonic dark matter is required: this matter could be contained in MACHOs. The investigators will make photometric measurements on up to three million Magellanic Cloud (or Galactic Bulge) stars each night for four years in order to detect the occasional amplification of these stars by the gravitational microlens effect.