Related papers: Hexadecapole Approximation in Planetary Microlensi…

Using current technology, gravitational microlensing is the only method that can measure planet masses over the full parameter space of planet and stellar-host masses and at a broad range of planet-host separations. I present a…

Terrestrial planets may be detected using the gravitational microlensing technique. This was demonstrated in the high magnification event MACHO-98-BLG-35. Observing strategies aimed at measuring the abundance of terrestrial planets are…

We summarize the status of a computer simulator for microlens planet surveys. The simulator generates synthetic light curves of microlensing events observed with specified networks of telescopes over specified periods of time. Particular…

Microlensing detections of cool planets are important for the construction of an unbiased sample to estimate the frequency of planets beyond the snow line, which is where giant planets are thought to form according to the core accretion…

Our understanding of extra-solar planet systems is highly driven by advances in observations in the past decade. Thanks to high precision spectrograph, we are able to reveal unseen companions to stars with the radial velocity method. High…

The most successful method used so far to search for extrasolar planets is the radial velocity technique, where periodical shifts on the measured emission from a star provide evidence for an orbiting planet. This method has been used on…

Gravitational microlensing surveys target very dense stellar fields in the local group. As a consequence the microlensed source stars are often blended with nearby unresolved stars. The presence of `blending' is a cause of major uncertainty…

Thirteen exo-planets have been discovered using the gravitational microlensing technique (out of which 7 have been published). These planets already demonstrate that super-Earths (with mass up to ~10 Earth masses) beyond the snow line are…

We use Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the number of extrasolar planets that are directly detectable in the solar-neighborhood using current and forthcoming high-contrast imaging instruments. Our calculations take into account the…

Calculating dipole moments with high-order basis sets is generally only possible for the light molecules, such as water. A simple, yet highly effective strategy of obtaining high-order dipoles with small, computationally less expensive…

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will expand the reach of gravitational microlensing surveys by increasing the number of events monitored and the precision of their light curves. We investigate Roman's ability to detect triple-lens…

We estimate the rate of near-field microlensing events expected from all-sky surveys and investigate the properties of these events. Under the assumption that all lenses are composed of stars, our estimation of the event rate ranges from…

Microlensing of extragalactic sources, in particular the probability of significant amplifications, is a potentially powerful probe of the abundance of compact objects outside the halo of the Milky Way. Accurate experimental constraints…

Significant advances in the discovery and characterization of the planetary systems of nearby stars can be accomplished with a moderate aperture high performance coronagraphic space mission that could be started in the next decade. Its…

Weak lensing is one of the best available diagnostic tools to measure the total density profiles of distant clusters of galaxies. Unfortunately, it suffers from the well-known mass-sheet degeneracy, so that weak lensing analyses cannot lead…

Imaging of planets is very difficult, due to the glare from their nearby, much brighter suns. Static and slowly-evolving aberrations are the limiting factors, even after application of adaptive optics. The residual speckle pattern is highly…

Among the group of extrasolar planets, transiting planets provide a great opportunity to obtain direct measurements for the basic physical properties, such as mass and radius of these objects. These planets are therefore highly important in…

We have found that Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our Sun, will pass close to a pair of faint background stars in the next few years. Using Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images obtained in 2012 October, we determine that the passage…

The availability of a robust and efficient routine for calculating light curves of a finite source magnified due to bending its light by the gravitational field of an intervening binary lens is essential for determining the characteristics…

We use six years (2003 to 2008) of Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment III microlensing observations to derive the survey detection efficiency for a range of planetary masses and projected distances from the host star. We perform an…