R. A. Allsman

We present a catalog of 450 relatively high signal-to-noise ratio microlensing events observed by the MACHO collaboration between 1993 and 1999. The events are distributed throughout our fields, and as expected, they show a clear concentration toward the Galactic center. No optical depth is given for this sample, since no blending efficiency calculation has been performed and we find evidence for substantial blending. In a companion paper we give optical depths for the subsample of events on clump giant source stars, where blending is a less significant effect. Several events with sources that may belong to the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy are identified. For these events even relatively low dispersion spectra could suffice to classify these events as either consistent with Sagittarius membership or as non-Sagittarius sources. Several unusual events, such as microlensing of periodic variable source stars, binary lens events, and an event showing extended source effects, are identified. We also identify a number of contaminating background events as cataclysmic variable stars.

We present a method for solving the light curve of an eclipsing binary system that contains a Cepheid variable as one of its components as well as the solutions for three eclipsing Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A geometric model is constructed in which the component stars are assumed to be spherical and on circular orbits. The emergent system flux is computed as a function of time, with the intrinsic variations in temperature and radius of the Cepheid treated self-consistently. Fitting the adopted model to photometric observations, incorporating data from multiple bandpasses, yields a single parameter set best describing the system. This method is applied to three eclipsing Cepheid systems from the MACHO project LMC database: MACHO 6.6454.5, 78.6338.24, and 81.8997.87. A best-fit value is obtained for each system's orbital period and inclination and for the relative radius, color, and limb-darkening coefficients of each star. Pulsation periods and parameterizations of the intrinsic color variations of the Cepheids are also obtained, and the amplitude of the radial pulsation of each Cepheid is measured directly. The system 6.6454.5 is found to contain a 4.97 day Cepheid, which cannot be definitely classified as type I or type II, with an unexpectedly brighter companion. The system 78.6338.24 consists of a 17.7 day, W Virginis class type II Cepheid with a smaller, dimmer companion. The system 81.8997.87 contains an intermediate-mass, 2.03 day overtone Cepheid with a dimmer, red giant secondary.

We present a method for solving the lightcurve of an eclipsing binary system which contains a Cepheid variable as one of its components as well as the solutions for three eclipsing Cepheids in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). A geometric model is constructed in which the component stars are assumed to be spherical and on circular orbits. The emergent system flux is computed as a function of time, with the intrinsic variations in temperature and radius of the Cepheid treated self-consistently. Fitting the adopted model to photometric observations, incorporating data from multiple bandpasses, yields a single parameter set best describing the system. This method is applied to three eclipsing Cepheid systems from the MACHO Project LMC database: MACHO ID's 6.6454.5, 78.6338.24 and 81.8997.87. A best-fit value is obtained for each system's orbital period and inclination and for the relative radius, color and limb-darkening coefficients of each star. Pulsation periods and parameterizations of the intrinsic color variations of the Cepheids are also obtained and the amplitude of the radial pulsation of each Cepheid is measured directly. The system 6.6454.5 is found to contain a 4.97-day Cepheid, which cannot be definitely classified as Type I or Type II, with an unexpectedly brighter companion. The system 78.6338.24 consists of a 17.7-day, W Vir Class Type II Cepheid with a smaller, dimmer companion. The system 81.8997.87 contains an intermediate-mass, 2.03-day overtone Cepheid with a dimmer, red giant secondary.

The MACHO Project generated two-color photometric lightcurves for 73 million stars in the LMC, SMC, and the galactic bulge during its 8 years of observing. This photometry, along with all images and a catalog of LMC variable stars, is now available for viewing or download from the MACHO Project websites, http://wwwmacho.anu.edu.au/ or http://wwwmacho.mcmaster.ca/ . The capabilities and organization of the new data retrieval facility is described in this paper.

We attempt to determine whether the MACHO microlensing source stars are drawn from the average population of the LMC or from a population behind the LMC by examining the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of microlensing source stars. We present WFPC2 HST photometry of eight MACHO microlensing source stars and the surrounding fields in the LMC. The microlensing source stars are identified by deriving accurate centroids in the ground-based MACHO images using difference image analysis (DIA) and then transforming the DIA coordinates to the HST frame. We consider in detail a model for the background population of source stars based on that presented by Zhao, Graff, & Guhathakurta. In this model, the source stars have an additional reddening of = 0.13 mag and a slightly larger distance modulus, ~ 0.3 mag, than the average LMC population. We also investigate a series of source star models, varying the relative fraction of source stars drawn from the average and background populations and the displacement of the background population from the LMC. Because of the small number of analyzed events, the distribution of probabilities of different models is rather flat. A shallow maximum occurs at a fraction s_LMC ~ 0.8 of the source stars in the LMC. This is consistent with the interpretation that a significant fraction of observed microlensing events are due to lenses in the Milky Way halo, but does not definitively exclude other models.

We present photometry and analysis of the microlensing alert MACHO 96-LMC-2 (event LMC-14 in an earlier paper). This event was initially detected by the MACHO Alert System and subsequently monitored by the Global Microlensing Alert Network (GMAN). The ~3% photometry provided by the GMAN follow-up effort reveals a periodic modulation in the light curve. We attribute this to binarity of the lensed source. Microlensing fits to a rotating binary source magnified by a single lens converge on two minima, separated by Δχ² ~ 1. The most significant fit X1 predicts a primary which contributes ~100% of the light, a dark secondary, and an orbital period (T) of ~9.2 days. The second fit X2 yields a binary source with two stars of roughly equal mass and luminosity and T = 21.2 days. Observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) resolve stellar neighbors which contribute to the MACHO object's baseline brightness. The actual lensed object appears to lie on the upper LMC main sequence. We estimate the mass of the primary component of the binary system, M ~ 2 M_☉. This helps to determine the physical size of the orbiting system and allows a measurement of the lens proper motion. For the preferred model X1, we explore the range of dark companions by assuming 0.1 M_☉ and 1.4 M_☉ objects in models X1a and X1b, respectively. We find lens velocities projected to the LMC in these models of _X1a = 18.3 ± 3.1 km s^-1 and _X1b = 188 ± 32 km s^-1. In both these cases, a likelihood analysis suggests an LMC lens is preferred over a Galactic halo lens, although only marginally so in model X1b. We also find _X2 = 39.6 ± 6.1 km s^-1, where the likelihood for the lens location is strongly dominated by the LMC disk. In all cases, the lens mass is consistent with that of an M dwarf. Additional spectra of the lensed source system are necessary to further constrain and/or refine the derived properties of the lensing object. The LMC self-lensing rate contributed by 96-LMC-2 is consistent with model self-lensing rates. Thus, even if the lens is in the LMC disk, it does not rule out the possibility of Galactic halo microlenses altogether. Finally, we emphasize the unique capability of follow-up spectroscopic observations of known microlensed LMC stars, combined with the nondetection of binary source effects, to locate lenses in the Galactic halo.

We report on a search for long duration microlensing events towards the Large Magellanic Cloud. We find none, and therefore put limits on the contribution of high mass objects to the Galactic dark matter. At 95% confidence level we exclude objects in the mass range 0.3 solar masses to 30.0 solar masses from contributing more than 4 times 10^11 solar masses to the Galactic halo. Combined with earlier results, this means that objects with masses under 30 solar masses 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 solar masses contribute less than 40% of the dark matter.Comment: 6 pages, latex with 3 postscript figures, submitted to ApJ Letter

We report the discovery of eight new R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using the MACHO project photometry database. The discovery of these new stars increases the number of known RCB stars in the LMC to thirteen. We have also discovered four stars similar to the Galactic variable DY Per. These stars decline much more slowly and are cooler than the RCB stars. The absolute luminosities of the Galactic RCB stars are unknown since there is no direct measurement of the distance to any Galactic RCB star. Hence, the importance of the LMC RCB stars. We find a much larger range of absolute magnitudes (M(V) = -2.5 to -5 mag) than inferred from the small pre-MACHO sample of LMC RCB stars. It is likely that there is a temperature - M(V)relationship with the cooler stars being intrinsically fainter. Cool (~5000 K) RCB stars are much more common than previously thought based on the Galactic RCB star sample. Using the fairly complete sample of RCB stars discovered in the MACHO fields, we have estimated the likely number of RCB stars in the Galaxy to be ~3,200. The SMC MACHO fields were also searched for RCB stars but none were found.

We attempt to determine whether the MACHO microlensing source stars are drawn from the average population of the LMC or from a population behind the LMC by examining the HST color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of microlensing source stars. We present WFPC2 HST photometry of eight MACHO microlensing source stars and the surrounding fields in the LMC. The microlensing source stars are identified by deriving accurate centroids in the ground-based MACHO images using difference image analysis (DIA) and then transforming the DIA coordinates to the HST frame. We consider in detail a model for the background population of source stars based on that presented by Zhao, Graff & Guhathakurta. In this model, the source stars have an additional reddening = 0.13 mag and a slightly larger distance modulus ~ 0.3 mag than the average LMC population. We also investigate a series of source star models, varying the relative fraction of source stars drawn from the average and background populations and the displacement of the background population from the LMC. Due to the small number of analyzed events the distribution of probabilities of different models is rather flat. A shallow maximum occurs at a fraction s_LMC ~ 0.8 of the source stars in the LMC. This is consistent with the interpretation that a significant fraction of observed microlensing events are due to lenses in the Milky Way halo, but does not definitively exclude other models.

We present photometry and analysis of the microlensing alert MACHO 96-LMC-2. The ~3% photometry provided by the Global Microlensing Alert Network follow--up effort reveals a periodic modulation in the lightcurve. We attribute this to binarity of the lensed source. Microlensing fits to a rotating binary source magnified by a single lens converge on two minima, separated by delta chi^2 ~ 1. The most significant fit X1 predicts a primary which contributes ~100% of the light, a dark secondary, and an orbital period (T) of 9.2 days. The second fit X2 yields a binary source with two stars of roughly equal mass and luminosity, and T = 21.2 days. The lensed object appears to lie on the upper LMC main sequence. We estimate the mass of the primary component of the binary system, M ~2 M_sun. For the preferred model X1, we explore the range of dark companions by assuming 0.1 M_sun and 1.4 M_sun objects in models X1a and X1b, respectively. We find lens velocities projected to the LMC in these models of v^hat_X1a = 18.3 +/- 3.1 km/s and v^hat_X1b = 188 +/- 32 k/ms. In both these cases, a likelihood analysis suggests an LMC lens is preferred over a Galactic halo lens, although only marginally so in model X1b. We also find v^hat_X2 = 39.6 +/- 6.1 k/ms, where the likelihood for the lens location is strongly dominated by the LMC disk. In all cases, the lens mass is consistent with that of an M-dwarf. The LMC self-lensing rate contributed by 96-LMC-2 is consistent with model self-lensing rates. (Abridged)