Probing the Atmospheres of Planets Orbiting Microlensed Stars via Polarization Variability
Astrophysics
2009-10-31 v1
Abstract
We present a new method to identify and probe planetary companions of stars in the Galactic Bulge and Magellanic Clouds using gravitational microlensing. While spectroscopic studies of these planets is well beyond current observational techniques, monitoring polarization fluctuations during high magnification events induced by binary microlensing events will probe the composition of the planetary atmospheres, an observation which otherwise is currently unattainable even for nearby planetary systems.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0006261,
title = {Probing the Atmospheres of Planets Orbiting Microlensed Stars via Polarization Variability},
author = {Geraint F. Lewis and Rodrigo A. Ibata},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0006261},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters