Microlensing by the Milky Way Halo

Abstract

The measurements of the possible gravitational microlensing events are analysed with a simple yet accurate disc--halo model of the Milky Way Galaxy. This comprises a luminous exponential disc embedded in a flattened dark matter halo with density varying like ${\rm distance}^{-1.8}$. Including a disc has the important effect of lowering the implied masses of the dark matter objects. For the possible detection reported by Alcock et al (1993), the inferred mass of the lens lies in the range $\sim 0.01 - 0.15 M_\odot$. The candidate events of Aubourg et al (1993) have slightly larger implied masses of $\sim 0.025 - 0.35\ M_\odot$ and $\sim 0.03 - 0.45\ M_\odot$ respectively. These are consistent with the deflecters being either brown dwarfs or low mass stars. If there is no disc dark matter and the halo is completely composed of baryonic dark objects of typical mass $ \sim 0.08\ M_\odot$, then the monitoring of $1.8 \times 10^6$ stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud will provide at least $8-9$ detections a year, in the limit of $100 \%$ efficiency.