Related papers: A Fast Approximate Approach to Microlensing Survey…
Ongoing microlensing surveys have already yielded more than five hundred microlensing events, most of which have been identified in real-time. In this review I present the basic theory and observational status of these surveys. I highlight…
This paper presents an investigation into the gravitational microlensing of quasars by stars and stellar remnants in the Milky Way. We present predictions for the all-sky microlensing optical depth, time-scale distributions and event rates…
We use three-dimensional distributions of classical Cepheids and RR~Lyrae stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) to model the stellar density distribution of a young and old stellar population in that galaxy. We use these models to…
Microlensing is sensitive to binary, brown dwarf, and planetary companions to normal stars in the Galactic bulge with separations between about 1-10 AU. The accurate, densely-sampled photometry of microlensing events needed to detect…
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…
WFIRST will conduct a coronagraphic program of characterizing the atmospheres of planets around bright nearby stars. When observed with the WFIRST Wide Field Camera, these stars will saturate the detector and produce very strong diffraction…
There are different methods for finding exoplanets such as radial spectral shifts, astrometrical measurements, transits, timing etc. Gravitational microlensing (including pixel-lensing) is among the most promising techniques with the…
For microlensing case angular distances between images or typical astrometric shifts due to microlensing are about $10^{-5}-10^{-6} \mu as$. Such an angular resolution will be reached with the space space--ground interferometer Radioastron.…
Microlensing events provide a unique way to detect and measure the masses of isolated, non-luminous objects, particularly dark stellar remnants. Under certain conditions, it is possible to measure the mass of these objects using photometry…
Characterizing a planet detected by microlensing is hard if the planetary signal is weak or the lens-source relative trajectory is far from caustics. However, statistical analyses of planet demography must include those planets to…
So far, most of the about 5700 exoplanets have been discovered mainly with radial velocity and transit methods. These techniques are sensitive to planets in close orbits, not being able to probe large star--planet separations. $\mu$-lensing…
We report the discovery of a several-Jupiter mass planetary companion to the primary lens star in microlensing event OGLE-2005-BLG-071. Precise (<1%) photometry at the peak of the event yields an extremely high signal-to-noise ratio…
Although many methods of detecting extra-solar planets have been proposed and successful implementation of some of these methods enabled a rapidly increasing number of exoplanet detections, little has been discussed about the method of…
In addition to constructing a Galactic matter mass function free from the bias induced by the hydrogen-burning limit, gravitational microlensing allows one to construct a mass function which is less affected by the problem of unresolved…
(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…
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…
We explore the science power of space telescopes used to estimate the true masses of known radial-velocity exoplanets by means of astrometry on direct images. We translate a desired mass accuracy (+/10% in our example) into a minimum goal…
Gravitational microlensing is a powerful method for detecting and characterizing free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPs). FFPs could have exomoons rotating them. In this work, we study the probability of realizing these systems (i.e.,…
Gravitational lensing provides a means to measure mass that does not rely on detecting and analysing light from the lens itself. Compact objects are ideal gravitational lenses, because they have relatively large masses and are dim. In this…
Because of the recent technological advances, the key technologies needed for precision space optical astrometry are now in hand. The Microarcsecond Astrometry Probe (MAP) mission concept is designed to find 1 Earth mass planets at 1AU…