Direct detection of a microlens in the Milky Way.

The nature of dark matter remains mysterious, with luminous material accounting for at most approximately 25 per cent of the baryons in the Universe. We accordingly undertook a survey looking for the microlensing of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) to determine the fraction of Galactic dark matter contained in massive compact halo objects (MACHOs). The presence of the dark matter would be revealed by gravitational lensing of the light from an LMC star as the foreground dark matter moves across the line of sight. The duration of the lensing event is the key observable parameter, but gives non-unique solutions when attempting to estimate the mass, distance and transverse velocity of the lens. The survey results to date indicate that between 8 and 50 per cent of the baryonic mass of the Galactic halo is in the form of MACHOs (ref. 3), but removing the degeneracy by identifying a lensing object would tighten the constraints on the mass in MACHOs. Here we report a direct image of a microlens, revealing it to be a nearby low-mass star in the disk of the Milky Way. This is consistent with the expected frequency of nearby stars acting as lenses, and demonstrates a direct determination of a lens mass from a microlensing event. Complete solutions such as this for halo microlensing events will probe directly the nature of the MACHOs.

Clump Giant Distance to the Magellanic Clouds and Anomalous Colors in the Galactic Bulge.

I demonstrate that the two unexpected results in the local universe-(1) anomalous intrinsic (V-I&parr0;0 colors of the clump giants and RR Lyrae stars in the Galactic center, and (2) very short distances to the Magellanic Clouds (LMC, SMC) as inferred from clump giants-are connected with each other. The (V-I&parr0;0 anomaly is partially resolved by using the photometry from phase II of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) rather than phase I. The need for V- or I-magnitude-based change in the bulge (V-I&parr0;0 is one option to explain the remaining color discrepancy. Such a change may originate in a coefficient of selective extinction AV&solm0;E&parl0;V-I&parr0; smaller than typically assumed. Application of the (V-I&parr0;0 correction (independent of its source) doubles the slope of the absolute magnitude-metallicity relation for clump giants, so that MI&parl0;RC&parr0;=-0.23+0.19 [Fe/H]. Consequently, the estimates of the clump distances to the LMC and SMC are affected. Udalski's distance modulus of µLMC=18.18+/-0.06 increases to 18.27+/-0.07. The distance modulus to the SMC increases by 0.12 to µSMC=18.77+/-0.08. I argue that a more comprehensive assessment of the metallicity effect on MI&parl0;RC&parr0; is needed.

Pure partial trisomy of the short arm of chromosome 5.

We describe a male infant with multiple dysmorphic features who is trisomic for chromosome segment 5p13.32----5p14.2 as a result of recombination aneusomy. His father is a balanced carrier of an inverted insertion of this chromosome segment. The clinical features of this patient are compared with those of other patients with isolated partial 5p trisomy reported in the literature.