Constraining Dark Matter with the Long-Term Variability of Quasars

E. Zackrisson, N. Bergvall & Phillip Helbig

Lighthouses of the Universe: The Most Luminous Celestial Objects and Their Use for Cosmology. Proceedings of the MPA/ ESO/ MPE/ USM Joint Astronomy Conference (ADS: 2002luml.conf.....G)
M. Gilfanov, R. Sunyaev & E. Churazov (eds.)
Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 550–552 (2002)
ISBN 3-540-43769-X


By comparing the results of numerical microlensing simulations to the observed long-term variability of quasars, strong upper limits on the cosmological density of compact objects in the mass range 10-2 -- 10-4 Modot may be imposed. Using recently developed methods to better approximate the amplification of large sources, we investigate in what way the constraints are affected by assumptions concerning the size of the optical continuum-emitting region of quasars in the currently favored (OmegaM = 0.3, OmegaLambda = 0.7) cosmology.


info and local links to full paper | doi:10.1007/10856495_87 | ADS: 2002luml.conf..550Z | Google Scholar
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