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arXiv 0709.1571astro-ph
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高红移微透镜和MACHO形式的暗物质的空间分布

High-redshift microlensing and the spatial distribution of dark matter in the form of MACHOs

E. Zackrisson, T. Riehm

摘要:

宇宙中相当大一部分的暗物质可能是以紧凑物体(MACHO)的形式存在的,当它们通过视线到达背景光源时,可以通过引力微透镜效应检测到。到目前为止,大多数试图通过宇宙学分布的MACHO群体来模拟高红移微透镜效应的尝试都假设紧凑的物体沿着视线随机均匀分布。在这里,我们提出了一个更现实的模型,其中的MACHO被假定为遵循冷暗物质的空间集群。由于视线到视线的表面质量密度的变化,这种情况下导致大量的散射在1000光学深度,我们量化为源红移的函数。我们发现,虽然基于均匀视线分布的光学深度估计对于最高红移的光源是合理的,但对于附近的(z~0.25)宇宙,这种估计可能是不正确的。因此,试图从只有少数独立视线的微透镜观测中得出MACHO的宇宙学密度可能会受到很大的不确定性的影响。我们还将此模型应用于预测类星体的微透镜引起的变化不受宏观透镜,并证明放松随机和均匀分布的MACHO的假设只有适度的影响预测的光变曲线振幅。这意味着,以前报道的问题与微透镜作为观测到的长期光学变化的类星体的主要机制,不能解决的大规模集群的暗物质考虑。

英文摘要:

A substantial part of the dark matter of the Universe could be in the form of compact objects (MACHOs), detectable through gravitational microlensing effects as they pass through the line of sight to background light sources. So far, most attempts to model the effects of high-redshift microlensing by a cosmologically distributed population of MACHOs have assumed the compact objects to be randomly and uniformly distributed along the line of sight. Here, we present a more realistic model, in which the MACHOs are assumed to follow the spatial clustering of cold dark matter. Because of sightline-to-sightline variations in surface mass density, this scenario leads to substantial scatter in MACHO optical depths, which we quantify as a function of source redshift. We find that while optical depth estimates based on a uniform line-of-sight distribution are reasonable for the highest-redshift light sources, such estimates can be incorrect by a factor of ~2 for the nearby (z~0.25) Universe. Hence, attempts to derive the cosmological density of MACHOs from microlensing observations of only a few independent sightlines can be subject to substantial uncertainties. We also apply this model to the prediction of microlensing-induced variability in quasars not subject to macrolensing, and demonstrate that relaxing the assumption of randomly and uniformly distributed MACHOs only has a modest impact on the predicted light curve amplitudes. This implies that the previously reported problems with microlensing as the dominant mechanism for the observed long-term optical variability of quasars cannot be solved by taking the large-scale clustering of dark matter into account.

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