Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1995-10-04
Astrophys.J. 473 (1996) 828
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
7 pages (24K), LaTeX; 2 Postscript figures
Scientific paper
10.1086/178195
It is widely believed that dark matter halos are flattened, that is closer to oblate than prolate. The evidence cited is based largely on observations of galaxies which do not look anything like our own and on numerical simulations which use ad hoc initial conditions. Given what we believe to be a ``reasonable doubt'' concerning the shape of dark Galactic halo we calculate the optical depth and event rate for microlensing of stars in the LMC assuming a wide range of models that include both prolate and oblate halos. We find, in agreement with previous analysis, that the optical depth for a spherical (E0) halo and for an oblate (E6) halo are roughly the same, essentially because two competing effects cancel approximately. However the optical depth for an E6 prolate halo is reduced by ~35%. This means that an all-Macho prolate halo with reasonable parameters for the Galaxy is consistent with the published microlensing event rate.
Holder Gilbert P.
Widrow Lawrence M.
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