arXiv subjects

N. W. Evans

Publications and source records attributed to N. W. Evans.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

arXiv2002

Dogs that Don't Bark (The Tale of Baryonic Dark Matter in Galaxies)

Fifteen years or so ago, it was commonly argued; ``If we want to believe the observations rather than our prejudice, we should take as our best bet that dark haloes are baryonic.'' Such a viewpoint is not often heard today. This change-of-mind has been enforced upon us largely by the microlensing experiments. Particle dark matter differs from (most types of) baryonic dark matter in that it does not produce microlensing events. The familiar parade of baryonic candidates has now been whittled down, and perhaps only one remains as a possible substantial contributor to the dark matter in the Galaxy's halo. This review assesses the distribution of missing matter in the Galaxy, the likely baryonic dark matter suspects, the evidence from microlensing and from the halo white dwarf searches.

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arXiv2002

New Mass Estimators for Tracer Populations

We introduce the tracer mass estimator. This is a new and simple way to estimate the enclosed mass from the projected positions and line of sight velocities of a tracer population (such as globular clusters, halo stars and planetary nebulae). Like the projected mass estimator, it works by averaging (projected distance) x (radial velocity squared)/ G over the sample. However, it applies to the commonest case of all, when the tracer population does not follow the overall dark matter density. The method is verified against simulated datasets drawn from Monte Carlo realisations of exact solutions of the collisionless Boltzmann equation and applied to the recent M31 globular cluster data set of Perrett et al. (2002), as well as to M31's satellite galaxies.

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arXiv2002

Distant field BHB stars and the mass of the Galaxy I: Classification of halo A-type stars

This is the first in a series of three papers presenting a new calculation of the mass of the Galaxy based on radial velocities and distances measured for a sample of some 100 faint 16 < B < 20 field blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars. This study aims to reduce the uncertainty in the measured mass of the Galaxy by increasing the number of halo objects at Galactocentric distances r>30 kpc with measured radial velocities by a factor five. Faint A-type stars in the Galactic halo have been identified from UBR photometry in six UK Schmidt fields. We obtain accurate CCD photometry and spectra to classify these stars. This paper describes our methods for separating out clean samples of BHB stars in a way that is efficient in terms of telescope time required. We use the high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) spectra of A-type stars of Kinman, Suntzeff & Kraft (published in 1994) to assess the reliability of two methods, and to quantify the S/N requirements. First we revisit, refine and extend the hydrogen line width versus colour relation as a classifier. The second method is new and compares the shapes of the Balmer lines. Using the equivalent width of the Ca II K line as an additional filter we find we can reproduce Kinman, Suntzeff & Kraft's classifications with both methods.

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arXiv2002

A Candidate M31/M32 Intergalactic Microlensing Event

We report the discovery of a microlensing candidate projected 2'54" from the center of M32, on the side closest to M31. The blue color (R-I= 0.00 +/- 0.14) of the source argues strongly that it lies in the disk of M31, while the proximity of the line of sight to M32 implies that this galaxy is the most likely host of the lens. If this interpretation is correct, it would confirm previous arguments that M32 lies in front of M31. We estimate that of order one such event or less should be present in the POINT-AGAPE data base. If more events are discovered in this direction in a dedicated experiment, they could be used to measure the mass function of M32 up to an unknown scale factor. By combining microlensing observations of a binary-lens event with a measurement of the M31-M32 relative proper motion using the astrometric satellites SIM or GAIA, it will be possible to measure the physical separation of M31 and M32, the last of the six phase-space coordinates needed to assign M32 an orbit.

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arXiv2002

Biases in Cometary Catalogues and Planet X

Two sets of investigators -- Murray (1999) and Matese, Whitman & Whitmire (1999) -- have recently claimed evidence for an undiscovered Solar System planet from possible great circle alignments in the aphelia directions of the long period comets. However, comet discoveries are bedevilled by selection effects. These include anomalies caused by the excess of observers in the northern as against the southern hemisphere, seasonal and diurnal biases, directional effects which make it harder to discover comets in certain regions of the sky, as well as sociological biases. The stream proposed by Murray is shown on an equal area Hammer-Aitoff projection. The addition of newer data weakens the case for the alignment. There is also evidence that the subsample in the stream is affected by seasonal and north-south biases. The stream proposed by Matese et al. is most obvious in the sample of dynamically new comets, and especially in those whose orbits are best known. The most recent data continues to maintain the overpopulation in this great circle. This pattern in the data occurs about once in a thousand times by chance. Numerical integrations are used to demonstrate that a planet by itself can reduce the perihelia of comets in its orbital plane to sufficiently small values so that they could be discovered from the Earth. There is a need for a sample of long period comets that is free from unknown or hard-to-model selection effects. Such will be provided by the European Space Agency satellite GAIA.

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arXiv2002

Structure of Possible Long-lived Asteroid Belts

High resolution simulations are used to map out the detailed structure of two long-lived stable belts of asteroid orbits in the inner Solar system. The Vulcanoid belt extends from 0.09 to 0.20 astronomical units (au), though with a gaps at 0.15 and 0.18 au corresponding to de-stabilising mean motion resonances with Mercury and Venus. As collisional evolution proceeds slower at larger heliocentric distances, kilometre-sized or larger Vulcanoids are most likely to be found in the region between 0.16 and 0.18 au. The optimum location in which to search for Vulcanoids is at geocentric ecliptic longitudes roughly between 9 and 10 degrees. Dynamically speaking, the Earth-Mars belt between 1.08-1.28 au is an extremely stable repository for asteroids on nearly circular orbits. It is interrupted at 1.21 au due to the 3:4 commensurability with the Earth, while secular resonances with Saturn are troublesome beyond 1.17 au. These detailed maps of the fine structure of the belts can be used to plan search methodologies. Strategies for detecting members of the belts are discussed, including the use of infrared wide-field imaging with VISTA, and forthcoming European Space Agency satellite missions like GAIA and BepiColombo.

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arXiv2002

Lensing Properties of Cored Galaxy Models

A method is developed to evaluate the magnifications of the images of galaxies with lensing potentials stratified on similar concentric ellipses. A simple contour integral is provided which enables the sums of the magnifications of even parity or odd parity or the central image to be easily calculated. The sums for pairs of images vary considerably with source position, while the signed sums can be remarkably uniform inside the tangential caustic in the absence of naked cusps. For a family of models in which the potential is a power-law of the elliptic radius, the number of visible images is found as a function of flattening, external shear and core radius. The magnification of the central image depends on the core radius and the slope of the potential. For typical source and lens redshifts, the missing central image leads to strong constraints; the mass distribution in the lensing galaxy must be nearly cusped, and the cusp must be isothermal or stronger. This is in accord with the cuspy cores seen in high resolution photometry of nearby, massive, early-type galaxies, which typically have the surface density falling like distance^{-1.3} outside a break radius of a few hundred parsecs. Cuspy cores by themselves can provide an explanation of the missing central images. Dark matter at large radii may alter the slope of the projected density; provided the slope remains isothermal or steeper and the break radius remains small, then the central image remains unobservable. The sensitivity of the radio maps must be increased fifty-fold to find the central images in abundance.

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arXiv2002

Microlensing Maps for the Milky Way Galaxy

At any instant, there are roughly 1000 ongoing microlensing events to sources brighter than 20th magnitude in the Milky Way Galaxy. Large-scale maps of the microlensing optical depth and the mean timescale are constructed for a number of models of the Galactic bar and disk, incorporating the effects of streaming and spiral structure. Freudenreich's model can reproduce the high optical depths towards the Bulge. It is also in good agreement with the data towards the spiral arms (except for the gamma Norma field). Spiral structure tends to increase the optical depth by about 20% and the mean timescale by about 100%. Different bar morphologies give characteristically different shaped contours, especially at low Galactic latitudes (|b| < 2 degrees). These could be traced out with a K band microlensing survey, consuming about 100 minutes per night on a telescope like VISTA.

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arXiv2001

Astrometric Microlensing with the GAIA satellite

GAIA is the ``super-Hipparcos'' survey satellite selected as a Cornerstone 6 mission by the European Space Agency. GAIA can measure microlensing by the small excursions of the light centroid that occur during events. The all-sky source-averaged astrometric microlensing optical depth is about 10^{-5}. Some 25000 sources will have a significant variation of the centroid shift, together with a closest approach, during the lifetime of the mission. A covariance analysis is used to study the propagation of errors and the estimation of parameters from realistic sampling of the GAIA datastream of transits in the along-scan direction during microlensing events. Monte Carlo simulations are used to study the 2500 events for which the mass can be recovered with an error of less than 50 per cent. These high quality events are dominated by disk lenses within a few tens of parsecs and source stars within a few hundred parsecs. We show that the local mass function can be recovered from the high quality sample to good accuracy. GAIA is the first instrument with the capabilities of measuring the mass locally in very faint objects like black holes and very cool white and brown dwarfs. For only 5 per cent of all astrometric events will GAIA record even one photometric datapoint. There is a need for a dedicated telescope that densely samples the Galactic Centre and spiral arms, as this can improve the accuracy of parameter estimation by a factor of about 10.

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arXiv2001

Dark Matter in Dwarf Spheroidals I: Models

This paper introduces a new two-parameter family of dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxy models. The density distribution has a Plummer profile and falls like the inverse fourth power of distance in projection, in agreement with the star-count data. The first free parameter controls the velocity anisotropy, the second controls the dark matter content. The dark matter distribution can be varied from one extreme of mass-follows-light through a near-isothermal halo with flat rotation curve to the other extreme of an extended dark halo with harmonic core. This family of models is explored analytically in some detail -- the distribution functions, the intrinsic moments and the projected moments are all calculated. For the nearby Galactic dSphs, samples of hundreds of discrete radial velocities are becoming available. A technique is developed to extract the anisotropy and dark matter content from such data sets by maximising the likelihood function of the sample of radial velocities. This is constructed from the distribution function and corrected for observational errors and the effects of binaries. Tests on simulated data sets show that samples of 1000 discrete radial velocities are ample to break the degeneracy between mass and anisotropy in the nearby dSphs. Interesting constraints can already be placed on the distribution of the dark matter with samples of 160 radial velocities (the size of the present-day data set for Draco).

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arXiv2001

Dark Matter in Dwarf Spheroidals II: Observations and Modelling of Draco

We present stellar radial velocity data for the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy obtained using the AF2/WYFFOS instrument combination on the William Herschel Telescope. Our dataset consists of 186 member stars, 159 of which have good quality velocities, extending to a magnitude V=19.5 with a mean velocity precision of 2 km/s. We find statistically strong evidence of a rising velocity dispersion consistent with a dark matter halo with gently rising rotation curve. There is a <2 sigma signature of rotation about the long axis, inconsistent with tidal disruption being the source of the rising dispersion. By comparing our dataset with earlier velocities, we find that Draco probably has a binary distribution and fraction comparable to those in the solar neighbourhood. We apply a novel maximum likelihood algorithm and fit the velocity data to a two parameter spherical model with an adjustable dark matter content and velocity anisotropy. Draco is best fit by a weakly tangentially anisotropic distribution of stellar orbits in a dark matter halo with a very slowly rising rotation law. We are able to rule out both a mass-follows-light distribution and an extended halo with a harmonic core at the 2.5 to 3 sigma significance level, depending on the details of our assumptions about Draco's stellar binary population. Our modelling lends support to the idea that the dark matter in dwarf spheroidals is distributed in the form of massive, nearly isothermal haloes.

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arXiv2001

Cuspy Dark-Matter Haloes and the Galaxy

The microlensing optical depth to Baade's Window constrains the minimum total mass in baryonic matter within the Solar circle to be greater than 3.9 x 10^{10} solar masses, assuming the inner Galaxy is barred with viewing angle of roughly 20 degrees. From the kinematics of solar neighbourhood stars, the local surface density of dark matter is about 30 +/- 15 solar masses per square parsec. We construct cuspy haloes normalised to the local dark matter density and calculate the circular-speed curve of the halo in the inner Galaxy. This is added in quadrature to the rotation curve provided by the stellar and ISM discs, together with a bar sufficiently massive so that the baryonic matter in the inner Galaxy reproduces the microlensing optical depth. Such models violate the observational constraint provided by the tangent-velocity data in the inner Galaxy (typically at radii 2-4 kpc). The high baryonic contribution required by the microlensing is consistent with implications from hydrodynamical modelling and the pattern speed of the Galactic bar. We conclude that the cuspy haloes favoured by the Cold Dark Matter cosmology (and its variants) are inconsistent with the observational data on the Galaxy.

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arXiv2001

Are there sextuplet and octuplet image systems?

We study gravitational lensing by the family of scale-free galaxies with flat rotation curves. The models are defined by a shape function, which prescribes the radius of the isophote as a function of position angle from the major axis. The critical curves are analytic, while the caustic network is reducible to a simple quadrature. The cusps are always located at the turning points of the shape function. We show that the models with exactly elliptic isophotes never admit butterfly or swallowtail cusps and so have at most 4 (or 5) images. Higher order imaging is brought about by deviations of the isophotes from pure ellipses -- such as pointedness caused by embedded disks or boxiness caused by recent merging. The criteria for the onset of sextuple and octuple imaging can be calculated analytically in terms of the ellipticity and the fourth-order Fourier coefficients (a_4 and b_4) used by observers to parametrise the isophote shapes. The 6 or 8 images are arranged roughly in a circle, which appears as an incomplete Einstein ring if inadequately resolved. Using data on the shapes of elliptical galaxies and merger remnants, we estimate that 1% of all multiply imaged quasars may be sextuplet systems or higher. Forthcoming satellites like the Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics (GAIA) will provide datasets of roughly 4000 multiply imaged systems, and so about 40 will show sextuple imaging or higher.

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arXiv2001

Lensing Properties of Scale-Free Galaxies

The multiple images of lensed quasars provide evidence on the mass distribution of the lensing galaxy. The lensing invariants are constructed from the positions of the images, their parities and their fluxes. They depend only on the structure of the lensing potential. The simplest is the magnification invariant, which is the sum of the signed magnifications of the images. Higher order invariants are the sums of products of the signed magnifications with positive or negative powers of the position coordinates of the images. We consider the case of the four and five image systems produced by elliptical power-law galaxies. This paper provides simple contour integrals for evaluating all their lensing invariants. For practical evaluation, this offers considerable advantages over the algebraic methods used previously. To illustrate the power of the contour integral method, we calculate full expansions in the source offset for all lensing invariants in the presence of arbitrary external shear. As an example, we use the elliptical power-law galaxies to fit to the data on the four images of the Einstein Cross (G2237+030). The lensing invariants play a role by reducing the dimensionality of the parameter space in which the chi-squared minimisation proceeds with consequent gains in accuracy and speed.

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arXiv2001

No Need for Dark Matter in Galaxies?

Unhappily, there has been a maelstrom of problems for dark matter theories over the last few years and many serious difficulties still have no resolution in sight. This article reviews the evidence for dark matter in galaxies. The haloes built up by hierarchical merging in dark matter cosmogonies are cusped and dominated by dark matter at the center. Evidence from the microlensing optical depth towards Baade's Window and from dynamical modelling of the Galactic bar already suggests that the Galactic halo is not cusped. Similarly, evidence from the stability of unbarred disk galaxies, as well as the survival of fast bars in barred galaxies, suggests that the this result holds good more generally. Judged on the data from galactic scales alone, the case for dark matter is weak and non-standard theories of gravity provide a better description. Of course, non-standard theories of gravity have their own problems, but not on galactic scales.

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arXiv2001

A Short Timescale Candidate Microlensing Event in the POINT-AGAPE Pixel Lensing Survey of M31

We report the discovery of a short-duration microlensing candidate in the northern field of the POINT-AGAPE pixel lensing survey towards M31. The full-width half-maximum timescale is very short, just 1.8 days. Almost certainly, the source star has been identified on Hubble Space Telescope archival images, allowing us to infer an Einstein crossing time of 10.4 days, a maximum magnification of about 18, and a lens-source proper motion greater than 0.3 microarcsec/day. The event lies projected at 8' from the center of M31, which is beyond the bulk of the stellar lens population. The lens is likely to reside in one of three locations. It may be a star in the M31 disk, or a massive compact halo object (Macho) in either M31 or the Milky Way. The most probable mass is 0.06 solar masses for an M31 Macho, 0.02 solar masses for a Milky Way Macho and 0.2 solar masses for an M31 stellar lens. Whilst the stellar interpretation is plausible, the Macho interpretation is the most probable for halo fractions above 20%.

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arXiv2000

The So-Called "Bar" in the Large Magellanic Cloud

The off-centered "bar" of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is commonly assumed, for simplicity's sake, to lie in the same plane as the LMC disk. Relaxing this assumption to the extent allowed by the observations, we can drastically change our interpretation of the microlensing events towards the LMC. We propose that the off-centered ``bar'' in the Large Magellanic Cloud is a foreground object slightly misaligned with, and offset from, the plane of the LMC disk. The small displacement and misalignment are consequences of recent tidal interactions with the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Galaxy. This proposal, though radical, is consistent with the kinematics of the LMC and near-infrared star count maps from the DENIS and 2MASS surveys. It does not violate any of the observational limits on the depth and structure of the LMC -- in particular, the reported 25 to 50 degree inclination range of the LMC and the east-west gradient of distance moduli of standard candles. Contributions to LMC microlensing come from the mutual lensing of stars in the disk and the ``bar'', as well as self-lensing of the disk and the ``bar''. The microlensing optical depth of such configurations from self-lensing alone is comparable to the observed microlensing signal reported by the EROS and MACHO groups. Possible observations are suggested to discriminate between our misaligned, offset ``bar'' model and the conventional picture of an off-centered, planar bar.

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arXiv2000

Triaxial Haloes and Particle Dark Matter Detection

This paper presents the properties of a family of scale-free triaxial haloes. We adduce arguments to suggest that the velocity ellipsoids of such models are aligned in conical coordinates. We provide an algorithm to find the set of conically aligned velocity second moments that support a given density against the gravity field of the halo. The case of the logarithmic ellipsoidal model -- the simplest triaxial generalisation of the familiar isothermal sphere -- is examined in detail. The velocity dispersions required to hold up the self-consistent model are analytic. The velocity distribution of the dark matter can be approximated as a triaxial Gaussian with semiaxes equal to the velocity dispersions. There are roughly twenty experiments worldwide that are searching for evidence of scarce interactions between weakly-interacting massive-particle dark matter (WIMPs) and detector nuclei. The annual modulation signal, caused by the Earth's rotation around the Sun, is a crucial discriminant between WIMP events and the background. The greatest rate is in June, the least in December. We compute the differential detection rate for energy deposited by the rare WIMP-nucleus interactions in our logarithmic ellipsoidal halo models. Triaxiality and velocity anisotropy change the total rate by up to 40 %, and have a substantial effect on the amplitude of the annual modulation signal. The overall rate is greatest, but the amplitude of the modulation is weakest, in our radially anisotropic halo models. Even the sign of the signal can be changed. Restricting attention to low energy events, the models predict that the maximum rate occurs in December, and not in June.

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