Related papers: Autonomous software: Myth or magic?
(abridged) The discovery of OGLE 2005-BLG-390Lb, the first cool rocky/icy exoplanet, impressively demonstrated the sensitivity of the microlensing technique to extra-solar planets below 10 M_earth. A planet of 1 M_earth in the same spot…
Among the methods proposed to detect extrasolar planets, microlensing is the only technique that can detect free-floating planets. Free-floating planets are detected through the channel of short-duration isolated lensing events. However, if…
Microlensing is a unique tool, capable of detecting the 'cold' planets between 1-10 AU from their host stars, and even unbound 'free-floating' planets. This regime has been poorly sampled to date owing to the limitations of alternative…
We demonstrate that gravitational lensing can be used to discover and study planets in the habitable zones of nearby dwarf stars. If appropriate software is developed, a new generation of monitoring programs will automatically conduct a…
Scores of on-going microlensing events are now announced yearly by the microlensing discovery teams OGLE, MACHO and EROS. These early warning systems have allowed other international microlensing networks to focus considerable resources on…
Specially-designed microlensing searches, some of which have been underway for several years, are sensitive to extrasolar planets orbiting the most common stars in our Galaxy. Microlensing is particularly well-suited to the detection of…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
This paper is devoted to exploring how we can discover and study nearby (< 1-2 kpc) planetary and binary systems by observing their action as gravitational lenses. Lensing can extend the realm of nearby binaries and planets that can be…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is designed to provide an unprecedented optical imaging dataset that will support investigations of our Solar System, Galaxy and Universe, across half the sky and over ten years of repeated observation.…
Large area surveys will dominate the forthcoming decades of astronomy and their success requires characterizing thousands of discoveries through additional observations at higher spatial or spectral resolution, and at complementary cadences…
We propose a new approach for modelling the functional behaviour of an Earth observation satellite. We leverage this approach in order to develop a safety critical software, a "telecommand verifier", that is in charge of checking onboard…
OGLE III and MOA II are discovering 600-1000 Galactic Bulge microlens events each year. This stretches the resources available for intensive follow-up monitoring of the lightcurves in search of anomalies caused by planets near the lens…
We have developped a new method for the scheduling of astronomical automatic telescopes, in the framework of the autonomous TAROT instrument. The MAJORDOME software can handle a variety of observations, constrained, periodic, etc., and…
We present a description of the automated system used by RoboNet to prioritise follow up observations of microlensing events to search for planets. The system keeps an up-to-date record of all public data from OGLE and MOA together with any…
Extra-solar planets can be efficiently detected in gravitational microlensing events of high magnification. High accuracy photometry is required over a short, well-defined time interval only, of order 10-30 hours. Most planets orbiting the…
We propose that extrasolar asteroid belts can be detected through their gravitational microlensing signatures. Asteroid belt + star lens systems create so-called "pseudo-caustics", regions in the source plane where the magnification…
Microlensing is potentially sensitive to multiple-planet systems containing analogs of all the solar system planets except Mercury, as well as to free floating planets. I review the landscape of microlensing planet searches, beginning with…
(abridged) The technique of gravitational microlensing is currently unique in its ability to provide a sample of terrestrial exoplanets around both Galactic disk and bulge stars, allowing to measure their abundance and determine their…
lenstronomy is an Astropy-affiliated Python package for gravitational lensing simulations and analyses. lenstronomy was introduced by Birrer and Amara (2018) and is based on the linear basis set approach by Birrer et a. (2015). The user and…
Large-scale photometric surveys are revolutionizing astronomy by delivering unprecedented amounts of data. The rich data sets from missions such as the NASA Kepler and TESS satellites, and the upcoming ESA PLATO mission, are a treasure…