English

Recent Developments in Gravitational Microlensing

Astrophysics 2008-04-01 v1

Abstract

Twenty-one years after Bohdan's seminal paper launched the field of gravitational microlensing, it has radically diversified from a method narrowly focused on finding dark matter to a very general astronomical tool. Microlensing has now detected 12 planets, including several that are inaccessible by other search methods. It has resolved the surfaces of distant stars, served as a magnifying glass to take spectra of extremely faint objects, and revealed a number of surprising phenomena. I take a sweeping look at this remarkable technique, giving equal weight to its successes and to the tensions that are continuing to propel it forward.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0803.4324,
  title  = {Recent Developments in Gravitational Microlensing},
  author = {Andrew Gould},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0803.4324},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

Review presented at "The Variable Universe: A Celebration of Bohdan Paczynski", 29 Sept 2007, 24 pages incl. 23 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:25:49.904Z