• Title/Summary/Keyword: Microlensing

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ADDITIONAL ASTRONOMICAL INFORMATION FROM THE ASTROMETRIC OBSERVATIONS OF GRAVITATIONAL MICROLENSING EVENTS (중력렌즈 사건의 측성학적 관측을 통한 추가 천문 정보의 획득)

  • HAN CHEONGHO
    • Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.9-22
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    • 1999
  • Current searches for gravitational microlensing events are being carried out only by a photometric method. In this review paper, we demonstrate that the nature of Galactic lenses can be significantly better constrained with the additional astrometric observations of microlensng events. First, by astromerically observing lensing events, one can resolve the lens parameter degeneracy, and thus the lens mass can be determined with improved precision. Second, by being free from the blending problem, astrometric observations of lensing events will allow one to improve the uncertainties in the determined Einstein time scales. Third, the lens brightness, which could not be measured photometrically, can be measured from the astrometric observations of lensing events, and thus the nature of lens matter can be better constrained. Finally, with the help of astrometric followup observations of a binary-lens event, one can uniquely determine the solution of lens parameters, allowing one to obtain important astronomical information about the source star and the lens itself.

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A CHARACTERISTIC PLANETARY FEATURE IN CAUSTIC-CROSSING HIGH-MAGNIFICATION MICROLENSING EVENTS

  • Kim, Do-Eon;Han, Cheong-Ho
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.42 no.3
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    • pp.33-37
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    • 2009
  • We propose a diagnostic that can resolve the planet/binary degeneracy of central perturbations in caustic-crossing high-magnification microlensing events. The diagnostic is based on the difference in the morphology of perturbation inside the central caustics induced by a planet and a wide-separation binary companion. We find that the contours of excess exhibit a concentric circular pattern around the caustic center for the binary-lensing case, while the contours are elongated or off-centered for the planetary case. This difference results in the distinctive features of the individual lens populations in the residual of the trough region between the two peaks of the caustic crossings, where the shape of the residual is symmetric for binary lensing while it tends to be asymmetric for planetary lensing. We determine the ranges of the planetary parameters for which the proposed diagnostic can be used. The diagnostic is complementary to previously proposed diagnostics in the sense that it is applicable to caustic-crossing events with small finite-source effect.

Euclid ASTEROSEISMOLOGY AND KUIPER BELT OBJECTS

  • GOULD, ANDREW;HUBER, DANIEL;STELLO, DENNIS
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.49 no.1
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    • pp.9-18
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    • 2016
  • Euclid, which is primarily a dark-energy/cosmology mission, may have a microlensing component, consisting of perhaps four dedicated one-month campaigns aimed at the Galactic bulge. We show that such a program would yield excellent auxilliary science, including asteroseismology detections for about 100 000 giant stars, and detection of about 1000 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), down to 2-2.5 mag below the observed break in the KBO luminosity function at I ∼ 26. For the 400 KBOs below the break, Euclid will measure accurate orbits, with fractional period errors ≲ 2.5%.

MICROLENS MASSES FROM 1-D PARALLAXES AND HELIOCENTRIC PROPER MOTIONS

  • Gould, Andrew
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.47 no.6
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    • pp.215-218
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    • 2014
  • One-dimensional (1-D) microlens parallaxes can be combined with heliocentric lens-source relative proper motion measurements to derive the lens mass and distance, as suggested by Ghosh et al. (2004). Here I present the first mathematical anlysis of this procedure, which I show can be represented as a quadratic equation. Hence, it is formally subject to a two-fold degeneracy. I show that this degeneracy can be broken in many cases using the relatively crude 2-D parallax information that is often available for microlensing events. I also develop an explicit formula for the region of parameter space where it is more difficult to break this degeneracy. Although no mass/distance measurements have yet been made using this technique, it is likely to become quite common over the next decade.

DEPENDENCE OF THE SENSITIVITY TO PLANETS ON THE PROPERTIES OF HIGH-MAGNIFICATION GRAVITATIONAL MICROLENSING EVENTS

  • Han, Cheong-Ho
    • Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.44 no.4
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    • pp.109-113
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    • 2011
  • In current microlensing planet searches that are being carried out in a survey/follow-up mode, the most important targets for follow-up observations are lensing events with high magnifications resulting from the very close approach of background source stars to the lens. In this paper, we investigate the dependence of the sensitivity to planets on detailed properties of high-magnification events. From this, it is found that the sensitivity does not monotonically increase as the impact parameter between the lens and the source trajectory decreases. Instead, it is roughly the same for events with impact parameters less than a certain threshold value. It is also found that events involving main-sequence source stars are sensitive to planets in a much wider range of separation and mass ratio, than those events involved with giant source stars. Based on these results, we propose observational strategies for maximal planet detections considering the types of telescopes available for follow-up observations.