Searching For Dark Matter With Gravitational Microlensing: A Report From The MACHO Collaboration

Gravitational microlensing is the most straightforward interpretation of the stellar brightenings that have been observed by our team and other experiments. These data have provided some of the most stringent limits to date on the nature of the Galaxy's dark matter halo. The number of events seen towards the LMC indicate that our Galaxy is not surrounded by a “standard” halo of MACHOs in the mass range of 10 –6 to 0.3 solar masses. The observed optical depth towards the Galactic Center is an important constraint on the distribution of mass in the plane of the Galaxy.