# Magnitude bias of microlensed sources towards the Large Magellanic Cloud

## 1 Introduction

One way of hiding most of the baryons in the Universe is to lock them in Machos, baryonic dark matter in the form of compact objects in galaxy halos. This has motivated current experimental searches for these objects in the Milky Way halo via gravitational microlensing (Paczńyski 1986), the temporary brightening of one of out of a million background stars as the unseen Macho passes close to the line of sight of that star by chance and focuses its light gravitationally. About $`2030`$ microlensing events in our line of sight to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and two to the Small Magellanic Cloud have been detected by the MACHO and EROS groups (Alcock et al. 1997a; Renault et al. 1997; Alcock et al. 1997b; Palanque-Delabrouille 1998; Alcock et al. 1999; Alcock et al. 2000), including two caustic binary events (MACHO-98-SMC-1 and MACHO-LMC-9) which are unambiguous cases of microlensing events. Nevertheless, it is a subject of heated debate whether these microlensing events are indeed due to dark matter in the Galaxy’s halo.

Currently there are two popular views on the issue:

* Galactic Halo Lensing Hypothesis (Machos): The lenses are located in the halo, and are dark. These lenses could be baryonic dark matter candidates (Alcock et al. 1997a, 2000; Gates & Gyuk 1999);
* Lensing by Ordinary Stars Hypothesis: The lenses are ordinary stars, not dark matter. This hypothesis is strongly constrained so that the only presently viable model is that the LMC sports some extra three-dimensional thick stellar structure displaced from the two-dimensional thin and cold disk of the LMC. These stars are providing either lenses or sources of the observed events (Zhao 1998a,b, 1999a).

A number of papers, including a few recent ones (Evans & Kerins 1999, Graff et al. 1999a; Fields, Freese & Graff, 1999; Gates & Gyuk 1999, Gyuk, Dalal & Griest 1999, Zhao 1999a) have investigated the shortcomings and plausibility of the two scenarios. Here we suggest using the source magnitude distribution to differentiate between the two classes of models. The existing data are not conclusive; however, there should shortly be enough data to apply the method discussed here.

Ordinary star lensing models require additional concentrations of stars along the line of sight to the LMC, in front of its main disk, behind it, or perhaps both (e.g., a partial or complete ring around the LMC). The added population may either be an extended distribution of stars around the LMC (e.g., tidal extension) or a distinct stellar system. If additional stars are located behind the LMC disk, then the sample of source stars that undergo lensing by ordinary stars in the LMC disk will be strongly biased to be in the background population. On the other hand, if lensing is due to Galactic halo Machos or a foreground object, the sample of lensed stars should be a random subsample of the observed stars in the LMC, weighted only by the microlensing efficiency of observing an event in that particular star. The observational consequences of the lensed stars being behind the LMC disk are that they should have:

* Slightly fainter baseline magnitudes in all bands than unlensed stars due to a larger (by $`0.3`$ mag) distance modulus;
* Preferentially fainter apparent magnitudes in the bluer bands than unlensed stars in neighbouring lines of sight due to reddening by intervening dust in the LMC disk: $`0.6`$ magof $`U`$-band extinction with factor of two variations on arcminute angular scales (cf. Zhao 1999c,d); and
* Velocity offsets of up to $`20`$ km s<sup>-1</sup> relative to unlensed stars because the kinematics of background stars will, in general, be different from those in the LMC disk (Zhao 1999b; Graff et al. 1999b).
* Small lens-source proper motions ($`30`$km/s at the LMC/SMC) measurable with caustic crossing events (Kerins & Evans 1999).

As reviewed by Zhao (1999a), all four effects statistically differentiate between the LMC self lensing and Macho hypotheses and do not necessarily apply on a star-by-star basis. A nice feature of these effects is that they are observable not only in real time for an on-going microlensing event but also for long-past events; the latter allows flexible telescope scheduling. These effects do not occur in the Galactic halo lensing models since the stars in the back and front of the LMC have nearly equal chance of being lensed by a Macho halfway to the LMC. In this paper, we examine the bias in the apparent baseline magnitudes of microlensed stars (the magnitude observed in the star either before or after the lensing event). This effect has been first discussed by Stanek (1995) for microlensing events in the Galactic bulge.

## 2 Model of the source and lens distribution

Based on microlensing experiments alone, it is possible to constrain the positions of a putative additional object along the line of sight to the LMC. Objects bound to the Magellanic clouds have a typical transverse velocity of $`70\text{ km\hspace{0.17em}s}^1`$ (the speed of rotation of LMC disk stars) relative to the systemic velocity. Assuming a typical lens mass of $`0.10.3M_{}`$ from a standard stellar IMF, and a typical Einstein radius crossing time of 45 days, then the lens-source distance is of order $`510`$ kpc. The detailed models of Zhao (1999b) suggest similar distances. The models of Evans & Kerins (1999) and the N-body simulation of Weinberg (1999) have a wide range of source-lens distances with a mean value also in the range $`512.5`$ kpc.

We assume that stars in the direction of the LMC are distributed in two separate groups, the primary LMC disk having a surface mass density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{D}`$ and an extra background population with surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{B}`$ situated $`512.5`$ kpc (0.2 – 0.5 mag) behind the primary disk, and we have tried a number of distance distributions within this range. We define $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{tot}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{D}+\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{B}`$. There may also be standard Galactic halo Machos between us and the LMC. The implications of a possible population in the immediate foreground of the LMC disk will be discussed later.

We define $`f_\mathrm{B}`$ to be the fraction of lensing events in which the lensed (source) stars are behind the LMC disk. Thus, $`f_\mathrm{B}=0`$ is for all halo lensing models in which all the lenses are well in front of the LMC and all the lensed (source) stars are in the LMC disk. Even in models in which there are additional stars behind the LMC disk, we expect $`f_\mathrm{B}<0.9`$ because some of the lensing events will be due to self lensing within the LMC disk (Wu 1994; Sahu 1994; Gould 1995).

## 3 The luminosity function of unlensed and lensed clumps

In this paper, we investigate small ($`0.3`$ mag) differences in apparent baseline magnitude between lensed stars and field stars. The only place in the color-magnitude diagram where there is a feature sharp enough for this difference to be seen and which contains enough stars to be important is the red clump. (cf. Figure 1 of astro-ph/9907348). The red clump is a sharp feature, with width of only 0.14 magin the $`I`$ band. It has been used as a standard candle on several occasions in the past; in particular, Stanek (1995) applied it to microlensing events in the Galactic bulge.

Even though main sequence events outnumber clump events by a factor of $`10`$, main sequence events cannot be used for this analysis since the main sequence is nearly verticle. A small shift in magnitude of a main sequence star will leave that star in the main sequence, especially when we consider that background stars are also likely to be reddened (Zhao 1999c)

Our method is applicable to any passband, and is presented here for a general passband $`X`$. We suggest that microlensing groups apply the method to the clump luminosity function in their particular passbands. We advocate the $`I`$ band because the clump is narrow in $`I`$ (cf. Figure 1).

We parametrize the observed apparent $`X`$-band luminosity function of the clump in the LMC disk as a narrow Gaussian superposed on a broader Schechter-like luminosity function for red giants.

$$n_\mathrm{D}(X)=C_1\mathrm{exp}\left[0.5\left(\frac{XX^{\mathrm{RC}}}{\sigma ^{\mathrm{RC}}}\right)^2\right]+C_2F^\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\beta F}{F^{\mathrm{RC}}}\right),$$
(1)   
where $`XX^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ and $`F/F^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ are the observed $`X`$-band magnitude and flux of a star relative to that of an average red clump, $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ is the width (dispersion) of the observed clump distribution, $`C_1`$, $`C_2`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are constants to be adjusted to fit the observed luminosity function. Assuming that the stellar populations in the LMC disk $`(D)`$ and background object $`(B)`$ are the same, the magnitude distribution of the background objects $`n_\mathrm{B}(X)`$ is simply that of the disk stars $`n_\mathrm{D}(X)`$ shifted by some amount $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ towards the faint side due to distance modulus and any excess extinction, i.e.,

$$n_\mathrm{B}(X)=\frac{_{\mathrm{Min}(\mathrm{\Delta })}^{\mathrm{Max}(\mathrm{\Delta })}𝑑\mathrm{\Delta }P(\mathrm{\Delta })n_\mathrm{D}(X\mathrm{\Delta })}{_{\mathrm{Min}(\mathrm{\Delta })}^{\mathrm{Max}(\mathrm{\Delta })}𝑑\mathrm{\Delta }P(\mathrm{\Delta })},$$
(2)   
where $`P(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ is the probability of finding a background population with a magnitude shift of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Assume equal chance of finding the background population at a distance $`(1.11.25)\times 50`$ kpc, we have

$$P(\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{const},\mathrm{Min}(\mathrm{\Delta })0.2\mathrm{mag},\mathrm{Max}(\mathrm{\Delta })0.5\mathrm{mag}.$$
(3)   
The observed luminosity function of LMC stars is a superposition of the disk stars and the background stars. However, in the limiting case that most of the surface density is in the LMC disk, we can make the simplifying assumption

$$n_{\mathrm{obs}}(X)=n_\mathrm{D}(X)+\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{B}}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{D}}n_\mathrm{B}(X)n_\mathrm{D}(X).$$
(4)   
Fitting eq. (1) directly to observations, here the published OGLE observed clump magnitude distribution in the $`I`$ band (Udalski et al. 1998), we determine the fitting parameters $`C_1`$, $`C_2`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$; the dispersion of the clump $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{RC}}=0.14`$ magis set at the value given by Udalski et al.. The lower panel of Figure 1 shows our model of the observed luminosity function is a fair approximation to that observed by the OGLE survey (cf. Fig. 5 of Udalski et al. 1998). Working with the relative magnitudes $`XX^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ has the advantage that the distributions are independent of calibrations of the zero point of the clump, and insensitive to changes of the passbands. Note that the derived luminosity function are not corrected for reddening, and we will consistently use uncorrected magnitudes throughout the paper.

The luminosity function of the lensed stars depends on the fraction of lensed stars in the LMC disk and the fraction of lensed stars behind the LMC:

$$n_{\mathrm{source}}(X,f_\mathrm{B})=f_\mathrm{F}n_\mathrm{D}(X)+f_\mathrm{B}n_\mathrm{B}(X).$$
(5)   
Here $`f_\mathrm{F}(1f_\mathrm{B})`$ is the fraction of events due to foreground lenses and LMC thin disk sources, while $`f_\mathrm{B}`$ is the fraction of events due to LMC thin disk lenses and background sources.

If most of the lensing is due to a background object and $`f_\mathrm{B}`$ is large, then the luminosity function of lensed stars will basically be the luminosity function of unlensed stars shifted by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(0.20.5)`$ mag. This shift is quite significant since it is larger than the width of the clump, 0.14 magin OGLE $`I`$ band. As shown in the lower panel of Figure 1, the expected lensed star luminosity function for a model with $`f_\mathrm{B}=0.9`$ is quite distinct from the unlensed luminosity function.

## 4 Analysis

### 4.1 Observed clump events

We urge the reader to examine Figure 3 of Alcock et al. (2000) for this discussion.

At the moment, there are at least $`3`$ confirmed events in the clump region. The latest MACHO collaboration publication (Alcock et al. 2000) shows that events LMC-MACHO-1 is indeed a few tenths magnitudes dimmer than the clump. Although one event cannot by itself be significant, this event is a few tenths of a mag fainter than the clump, exactly where we expect it to be if lensing is due to a background object. LMC-MACHO-16 is brighter than the clump but this event carries no statistical significance since it must be a red giant branch object whether or not it is in the LMC disk or behind the disk. LMC-MACHO-25 is in the center of the clump, and may be due to an LMC disk source, indicating that $`f_B<1`$. However, these few events are not enough to make any significant statements about $`f_B`$.

These three events are shown in the upper panel of Figure 1, where the probability of finding a clump is a factor of a few lower than average. The histograms here were made simply by binning the MACHO LMC color-magnitude diagram in the MACHO-defined clump region $`0.3VR0.9`$ and $`17.5V20`$ (cf. the clump “square” in Figure 11 of Alcock et al. 1997a). These distributions we get are similar to the published OGLE $`I`$ magnitude distributions (cf. Figure 5 of Udalski et al. 1998 and the lower panel of our Figure 2), but the OGLE distributions are narrower. This is perhaps partly due to better seeing with OGLE and a narrower color range $`0.8<VI<0.95`$ for the clump in Udalski et al. (1998). Furthermore, the clump is approximately horizontal in $`I`$ (Paczyński & Stanek 1998)—i.e., the mean magnitude of the clump does not depend strongly on color. Differential extinction in the $`I`$-band is also smaller, making the clump a narrower feature in $`I`$ than in $`V`$ and $`R`$. For these reasons we prefer to do our analysis in the $`I`$ band. Unfortunately the offset $`I`$ magnitude of the MACHO-LMC-1 from the clump is unknown, although it is perhaps fair to assume it is not too different from the observed value in $`V`$ and $`R`$. In this case the event lies also well off the peak for the unlensed stars, but exactly under the peak of the luminosity function of lensed stars in the $`f_\mathrm{B}=0.9`$ model, a model in which most of the lensing is due to a background object. The probability of finding such an event is approximately 5 times greater in the $`f_\mathrm{B}=0.9`$ model than in the $`f_\mathrm{B}=0`$ model. Thus, formally, this single event favors the background lensing hypothesis at the statistically marginal 80% confidence level.

### 4.2 Future clump events

We have run Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the effect of increasing the events. These simulations are done in the $`I`$ band in order to use the published OGLE clump luminosity function (Udalski et al. 1998). These simulations suggest that perhaps 10 additional clump event is needed to exclude the Galactic halo lensing hypothesis.

Extrapolating the present detection rate, we anticipate that these clump events could be detected with the OGLE II and EROS II experiments in the next few years. It should be very interesting to re-apply the above analysis.

Finally we remark that in case Occam’s razor fails, i.e., in case the dark halo is a mix of Machos and non-baryonic matter and the microlenses are a mix of Machos and stars (in the foreground or the LMC), then $`f_\mathrm{B}`$ can still set an upper limit on the fraction of Machos in the halo via the relation:

$$f_{\mathrm{Macho}}0.2f_\mathrm{F}=0.2(1f_\mathrm{B}),$$
(6)   
where the factor $`0.2`$ is the current estimated Macho halo mass fraction (Alcock et al. 2000).

## 5 Conclusion

If the LMC lensing is due to the sources being in a background stellar system, then the properties of lensed stars should be systematically different from those of the bulk of LMC stars. Although there are several obvious comparisons that can be made (e.g., of the kinematics), the simplest way of examining the lensed stars is to compare their baseline apparent magnitudes with those of unlensed LMC field stars. In particular, the red clump provides a sharp feature that is ideal for such a comparison.

This technique is powerful because the expected distance difference modulus we are searching for ($`0.20.5`$ mag) is wider than the sharp (0.14 mag) red clump. Any signal found using this (differential) technique cannot be due to the normal spatially-variable reddening in the LMC disk, poor photometry, or blending in crowded fields, all of which affect lensed and unlensed stars in the LMC disk equally.

The technique can also apply to an arc-like distribution wrapping around the LMC disk (Kunkel et al. 1997), with some stars in the foreground and some in the background or to a shroud of stellar matter around the LMC (Weinberg 1999, Evans & Kerins 1999). We note, however, that this technique (and in fact all first three techniques mentioned in the Introduction) cannot distinguish between the standard Galactic halo lens model and a model in which there is a small additional distribution of stars immediately in front of the LMC (but none in the background), since in both cases the lensed stars will be exactly at the distance of the LMC primary disk.

As few as one additional clump event could potentially rule out the halo lensing hypothesis at the 95% confidence level, although more events will be needed if, as seems indicated by unpublished microlensing alerts, some of the lensing events are due to a foreground object. Many more clump events should be available in a few years, and these should yield valuable clues to the line of sight structure of the Magellanic Cloud system.

We thank the referee, David Bennett for doing a very careful job in scrutinization of the paper, David Alves, Andy Gould and Tim de Zeeuw for helpful discussions.