Skip to content

How to find MACHOs in the Virgo Cluster

Helen Tadros, Stephen Warren, Paul Hewett

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/9806176

Abstract

We discuss the feasibility of finding extra-galactic MACHOs by monitoring quasars behind the Virgo cluster of galaxies. We show that with only a modest observing programme one could detect several MACHOs in the mass range 1 X 10-5 to 2 X 10-2 solar masses if they make a significant contribution to the mass of Virgo. The contamination by events from cosmologically distributed MACHOs is estimated and is negligible if either the MACHO mass is greater than about 10-4 solar masses or the quasar radius is greater than about 3 X 1015 cm.

Create a lesson