Theoretical and Natural Science
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Vol. 10, 17 November 2023
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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.
dark matter, microlensing events, redshift, mass of the lenses
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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