MACHO Project Limits on Black Hole Dark Matter in the 1-30 M Range

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Published 2001 March 20 © 2001. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
, , Citation C. Alcock et al 2001 ApJ 550 L169 DOI 10.1086/319636

1538-4357/550/2/L169

Abstract

We report on a search for long-duration microlensing events toward the Large Magellanic Cloud. We find none and therefore put limits on the contribution of high-mass objects to the Galactic dark matter. At a 95% confidence level, we exclude objects in the mass range of 0.3-30.0 M from contributing more than 4 × 1011 M to the Galactic halo. Combined with earlier results, this means that objects with masses under 30 M cannot make up the entire dark matter halo if the halo is of typical size. For a typical dark halo, objects with masses under 10 M contribute less than 40% of the dark matter.

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10.1086/319636