Theoretical and Natural Science

- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences


Theoretical and Natural Science

Vol. 10, 17 November 2023


Open Access | Article

Compact object probed by microlensing in the universe: MACHOs, stars, planets?

Shaoqian Du * 1 , Peng Jiang 2
1 St. Paul's School
2 Polar Research Institute of China

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Theoretical and Natural Science, Vol. 10, 53-63
Published 17 November 2023. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Shaoqian Du, Peng Jiang. Compact object probed by microlensing in the universe: MACHOs, stars, planets?. TNS (2023) Vol. 10: 53-63. DOI: 10.54254/2753-8818/10/20230310.

Abstract

Nearly 30% of the components in the universe are dark matter, hitherto, astronomers are still uncertain about their properties. This project attempts to constrain whether dark matter is MACHOs or diffused particles via statistics of microlensing events observed toward quasars, which are the brightest objects in the Universe. The identification of isolated microlensing events enables us to study stellar and planetary objects in distant universes that would be otherwise unobservable. During the research two isolated microlensing events toward quasar J1821 is discovered in the first 25 quasars in our sample. The WISE light curves in W1 and W2 bands are almost identical in magnification, consistent with achromatic variability due to microlensing. The crossing times for the two events are about 2 days and 1.3 days, thus the lenses are probably a star or sub-stellar object. By assuming the lenses are in galaxies of the galactic cluster with a redshift of 0.81 lying in our sight of view to the quasar, calculations of the mass of the lenses as a function of its velocity can be made, yielding a planetary mass or less in the relative velocity dominated by the movements of galaxies. If the superluminous motion of jets in a quasar dominates the relative velocity, stellar masses are derived. The data analysis yielded from the microlensing light curves of J1821 suggests microlensing as a method for astronomers to further study stellar and sub-stellar objects in our Universe.

Keywords

dark matter, microlensing events, redshift, mass of the lenses

References

1. Maoz, D., 2016. Astrophysics in a Nutshell (Vol. 16). Princeton university press.

2. Kayser, R., Refsdal, S. and Stabell, R., 1986. Astrophysical applications of gravitational micro-lensing. Astronomy and Astrophysics, 166, pp.36-52.

3. Bertone, G. and Hooper, D., 2018. History of dark matter. Reviews of Modern Physics, 90(4), p.045002.

4. Perryman, M., 2018. The exoplanet handbook. Cambridge university press.

5. Gioia, I.M., Wolter, A., Mullis, C.R., Henry, J.P., Böhringer, H. and Briel, U.G., 2004. RX J1821. 6+ 6827: A cool cluster at z= 0.81 from the ROSAT NEP survey. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 428(3), pp.867-875.

6. Gioia, I.M., Henry, J.P., Mullis, C.R., Böhringer, H., Briel, U.G., Voges, W. and Huchra, J.P., 2003. The ROSAT north ecliptic pole survey: The optical identifications. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 149(1), p.29.

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Mathematical Physics and Computational Simulation
ISBN (Print)
978-1-83558-131-5
ISBN (Online)
978-1-83558-132-2
Published Date
17 November 2023
Series
Theoretical and Natural Science
ISSN (Print)
2753-8818
ISSN (Online)
2753-8826
DOI
10.54254/2753-8818/10/20230310
Copyright
17 November 2023
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated