Spectroscopy of MACHO 97-SMC-1: Self-Lensing within the Small Magellanic Cloud

More than a dozen microlensing events have been detected so far toward the LMC, and two have been detected toward the SMC. If all of the lenses are in the Galactic halo, both the LMC and the SMC events are expected to have similar timescales. However, the first event toward the SMC, MACHO 97-SMC-1, had a timescale of 123 days, which is much larger than the typical timescale for the LMC events. Since the observed timescale of the SMC event would need the mass of the halo lens to be ~3 M_☉, it has been argued earlier that the lens must be within the SMC, which we spectroscopically confirm in this Letter. From optical depth estimates, we first show that the stars within the SMC play a dominant role as gravitational lenses and can fully account for the observed microlensing events, mainly due to its large physical depth. We also show that if the lenses are within the Magellanic Clouds, then the SMC events should be longer in duration than the LMC events, a fact that is consistent with the observations. The timescale of the event implies that the mass of the lens is ≳2 M_☉ if it is in the Milky Way disk or halo, in which case the lens, if it is a normal star, is expected to be bright and should reveal itself in the spectrum. Here, we present an optical spectrum of MACHO 97-SMC-1 obtained in 1997 May that shows that the source is a main-sequence B star. There is no trace of any contribution from the lens, which suggests that the lens is not in the Milky Way disk or halo but is a low-mass star within the SMC. The other alternative, that the lens could be a black hole in the Galactic halo, cannot be ruled out from the spectrum alone, but this is disfavored by the timescales of the LMC events. It is worth noting here that MACHO SMC-98-1 is the only other observed event toward the SMC. This was a binary lens event for which the caustic crossing timescale as observed by the PLANET, MACHO, EROS, and OGLE collaborations suggests that the lens is within the SMC. Furthermore, the only LMC event for which we have independent information on the location of the lens is the binary lens event MACHO LMC-9, where the caustic crossing timescale suggests the lens to be within the LMC. Thus, our current knowledge of the events indicates that all three microlensing events toward the Magellanic Clouds for which we have independent knowledge of the location of the lenses are due to self-lensing within the Magellanic Clouds.