Related papers: Completing the Census of Exoplanets with the Micro…
The current searches for microlensing events towards the galactic bulge can be used to detect planets around the lensing stars. Their effect is a short-term modulation on the smooth lightcurve produced by the main lensing star. Current and…
We show that Earth mass planets orbiting stars in the Galactic disk and bulge can be detected by monitoring microlensed stars in the Galactic bulge. The star and its planet act as a binary lens which generates a lightcurve which can differ…
We follow the microlensing approach and quantify the occurrence of Kepler exoplanets as a function of planet-to-star mass ratio, q, rather than planet radius or mass. For planets with radii ~1-6 R_earth and periods <100 days, we find that,…
Gravitational microlensing is known for baryoninc dark matter searches. Here we show that microlensing also provides a unique tool for the detection of low mass planets (such as earths and neptunes) from the ground. A planetary system forms…
We present K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb, a densely sampled, planetary binary caustic-crossing microlensing event found from a blind search of data gathered from Campaign 9 of the Kepler K2 mission (K2C9). K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb is the first bound…
Aims: We predict the exoplanet yield of a space-based mid-infrared nulling interferometer using Monte Carlo simulations. We quantify the number and properties of detectable exoplanets and identify those target stars that have the highest or…
High contrast direct imaging of exoplanets can provide many important observables, including measurements of the orbit, spectra that probe the lower layers of the atmosphere, and phase variations of the planet, but cannot directly measure…
Planet detection through microlensing is usually limited by a well-known degeneracy in the Einstein timescale $t_E$, which prevents mass and distance of the lens to be univocally determined. It has been shown that a satellite in…
We investigate the possibility of exoplanet detection orbiting source stars in microlensing events through WFIRST observations. We perform a Monto Carlo simulation on the detection rate of exoplanets via microlensing, assuming that each…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing observations. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, a, greater than ~1.5 R_E.…
In the currently-favored paradigm of planet formation, the location of the snow line in the protoplanetary disk plays a crucial role. Determining the demographics of planets beyond the snow line of stars of various masses is thus essential…
Gravitational microlensing occurs when a foreground star happens to pass very close to our line of sight to a more distant background star. The foreground star acts as a lens, splitting the light from the source star into two images, which…
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…
In contrast to radial velocity surveys, results from microlensing surveys indicate that giant planets with masses greater than the critical mass for core accretion ($\sim 0.1~M_{\rm Jup}$) are relatively common around low-mass stars. Using…
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…
The mass and distance functions of free-floating planets (FFPs) would give major insights into the formation and evolution of planetary systems, including any systematic differences between those in the disk and bulge. We show that the only…
I review results from, and future prospects for, microlensing searches for extrasolar planets. Analyses of well-sampled microlensing light curves by several collaborations have demonstrated that current searches are sensitive to…
By providing sensitive sub-arcsecond images and integral field spectroscopy in the 25 - 400 micron wavelength range, a far-IR interferometer will revolutionize our understanding of planetary system formation, reveal otherwise-undetectable…
Kepler's quest for other Earths need not end just yet: it remains capable of characterizing cool Earth-mass planets by microlensing, even given its degraded pointing control. If Kepler were pointed at the Galactic bulge, it could conduct a…
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…