AGAPEROS - SEARCHES FOR MICROLENSING IN THE LMC WITH THE PIXEL METHOD- II - SELECTION OF POSSIBLE MICROLENSING EVENTS

We apply the pixel method of analysis (sometimes called ''pixel lensin g'') to a small subset of the EROS-1 microlensing observations of the bar of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The pixel method is designed to find microlensing events of unresolved source stars and had heretof ore been applied only to M31 where essentially all sources are unresol ved. With our analysis optimised for the detection of long-duration mi crolensing events due to 0.01-1 M. Machos, we detect no microlensing e vents and compute the corresponding detection efficiencies. We show th at the pixel method, applied to crowded fields, should detect 10 to 20 times more microlensing events for M > 0.05M. Machos compared to a cl assical analysis of the same data which latter monitors only resolved stars. In particular, we show that for a full halo of Machos in the ma ss range 0.1 - 0.5 M., a pixel analysis of the three-year EROS-1 data set covering 0.39 deg(2) would yield similar or equal to 4 events.