1998/03/31 by G. Steigman, Gary Steigman, I. Tkachev · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Baryon #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gravitational microlensing #Halo #Large Magellanic Cloud #Local Group #Milky Way #Physics #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/307657
published in The Astrophysical Journal 522(2), 793-801 (IOP Publishing) · Replaced with the version accepted for publication in ApJ
arxiv created 1999/02/05 · openalex publication_date 1999/09/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We obtain restrictions on the universal baryon fraction, f B ≡ Ω B /Ω 0 , by assuming that the observed microlensing events toward the Large Magellanic Cloud are due to baryonic MACHOs in the halo of the Galaxy and by extracting a bound to the total mass of the Milky Way from the motion of tracer galaxies in the Local Group. We find a lower bound f B > 0.29 +0.18 -0.15 . Consistency with the predictions of primordial nucleosynthesis leads to the further constraint on the total mass density, Ω 0 ≲ 0.2.