A microlensing search for cold molecular clouds in Virgo

Abstract

We report preliminary results from a first season of photometric monitoring of 600 quasars behind the Virgo galaxy cluster with the aim of detecting microlensing by the cluster dark matter. Our project is sensitive to dark objects of surface mass densities down to ~20 g/cm^2. We are thus capable of detecting diffuse objects, such as cold molecular clouds, unlike all Galactic microlensing surveys whose surface mass density limits are > 10^4 g/cm^2. The average optical depth to microlensing of quasars through the central 30 sq. deg. of Virgo is ~1x10^-3. We report a null detection which implies that less than half the dark matter in Virgo is in objects of mass ~10^-5 solar masses, of surface mass density > 20 g/cm^2, at 90% confidence.