Evidence for a binary lens in the MACHO LMC No. 1 microlensing event.

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

31

Dark Matter, Gravitational Lenses, Stars: Low-Mass, Brown Dwarfs, Galaxy: Halo

Scientific paper

During the last three years, several galactic microlensing events towards the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Galactic Bulge have been detected by four observing groups (MACHO, EROS, OGLE, DUO). Most of these are commonly explained as due to microlensing of a point source by a point mass lens. In this paper, we discuss statistical methods to determine the goodness-of-fit for a specific model of source and lens beyond the assumption that the errors are normal. In particular, we argue that the MACHO LMC#1 event has been caused by a binary lens and thereby confirm our hypothesis (Dominik & Hirshfeld 1994). We also show that the binary lens fit is not unique by presenting alternative plausible binary lens fits. We emphasize that knowledge of the fraction of binaries among the observed microlensing events is crucial for estimating the mass distribution of the observed dark objects. We finally show that for each data set of parameters for a binary source, two physical configurations with different distances between the components exist which produce exactly the same light curve.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Evidence for a binary lens in the MACHO LMC No. 1 microlensing event. does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Evidence for a binary lens in the MACHO LMC No. 1 microlensing event., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Evidence for a binary lens in the MACHO LMC No. 1 microlensing event. will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1455904

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.