Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003aas...20314302c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 203, #143.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.588
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
1
Scientific paper
The Deep Impact Microlens Explorer is a new science extended mission for the Deep Impact spacecraft which will solve the mystery of the gravitational microlensing events seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and determine if any of the Milky Way's dark matter is Baryonic. The MACHO Project has detected more than 5 times as many microlensing events in the LMC as expected due to known stellar populations (Alcock et al 2000), and this suggests that about 20% of the Milky Way's dark matter may be in stellar mass objects - possibly very old white dwarfs. It has also been suggested that microlensing due to stars in the LMC itself could be responsible for the microlensing excess seen in the LMC (Sahu 1994). Ground-based data cannot determine the distances to the lensing object, but simultaneous observations by two telescopes separated by 1 AU can measure the microlens parallax effect and determine the distance to the lensing object. In August, 2005, the Deep Impact (DI) spacecraft will provide an opportunity to carry out this mission at extremely low cost. DI will be carrying a 30cm telescope at 0.9AU from the Earth and will have completed its prime mission. We are proposing the DIME mission extension to carry out the microlensing parallax observations that will resolve this dark matter mystery. DIME observations of the Galactic bulge will also measure the abundance of stellar mass black holes in the bulge.
KHC's work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.
Cook Kem H.
DIME Collaboration
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