Oppenheimer B R, Hambly N C, Digby A P, Hodgkin S T, Saumon D
Astronomy Department, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411, USA.
Science. 2001 Apr 27;292(5517):698-702. doi: 10.1126/science.1059954. Epub 2001 Mar 22.
The Milky Way galaxy contains a large, spherical component which is believed to harbor a substantial amount of unseen matter. Recent observations indirectly suggest that as much as half of this "dark matter" may be in the form of old, very cool white dwarfs, the remnants of an ancient population of stars as old as the galaxy itself. We conducted a survey to find faint, cool white dwarfs with large space velocities, indicative of their membership in the galaxy's spherical halo component. The survey reveals a substantial, directly observed population of old white dwarfs, too faint to be seen in previous surveys. This newly discovered population accounts for at least 2 percent of the halo dark matter. It provides a natural explanation for the indirect observations, and represents a direct detection of galactic halo dark matter.
银河系包含一个巨大的球状组成部分，人们认为其中蕴藏着大量不可见物质。最近的观测间接表明，这种“暗物质”中多达一半可能是以古老、非常冷的白矮星形式存在的，这些白矮星是与银河系本身一样古老的远古恒星群体的残余。我们进行了一项调查，以寻找具有大空间速度的暗弱、冷白矮星，这表明它们属于银河系的球状晕族成分。该调查揭示了大量直接观测到的老年白矮星群体，这些白矮星过于暗弱，在以前的调查中无法看到。这个新发现的群体至少占晕族暗物质的2%。它为间接观测提供了一个自然的解释，并且代表了对银河系晕族暗物质的直接探测。
