Related papers: Static Microlensing: Concept, Method and Candidate…
We examine the most recent observational constraints arising from i) small-scale and large-scale Galactic dynamical properties, ii) star counts at faint magnitude and iii) microlensing experiments. From these constraints, we determine the…
Gravitational microlensing, the lensing of stars in the Milky Way galaxy with other stars, has been used for exploring compact dark matter objects, exoplanets, and black holes. The duration of microlensing events, the so-called Einstein…
It is conventional to calculate the probability of microlensing for a cosmologically distant source based on the Press-Gunn approximation that the lensing objects are uniformly and randomly distributed in the intervening space with a…
The microlensing of background stars by compact objects in globular clusters is analyzed. The main strength of the proposed search is the direct relationship between the lens mass and the time scale of the microlensing event. The main…
We investigate whether Gaia can specify the binary fractions of massive stellar populations in the Galactic disk through astrometric microlensing. Furthermore, we study if some information about their mass distributions can be inferred via…
In this paper we investigate the properties of astrometric microlensing of distant radio sources (QSOs and radio galaxies) due to MACHOs, and discuss their implications for VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). First we show that in…
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…
There are expected to be millions of isolated black holes in the Galaxy resulting from the death of massive stars. Measuring the abundance and properties of this remnant population would shed light on the end stages of stellar evolution and…
Microlensing is one of the most promising tools for discovering stellar-mass black holes (BHs) in the Milky Way because it allows us to probe dark or faint celestial compact objects. While the existence of stellar-mass BHs has been…
The study of strong-lensing systems conventionally involves constructing a mass distribution that can reproduce the observed multiply-imaging properties. Such mass reconstructions are generically non-unique. Here, we present an alternative…
Are microlensing searches likely to discover planets that harbor life? Given our present state of knowledge, this is a difficult question to answer. We therefore begin by asking a more narrowly focused question: are conditions on planets…
Highly magnified stars ($\mu$ $>$ 100) are now outinely identified as transient events at cosmological distances thanks to microlensing by intra-cluster stars near the critical curves of galaxy clusters. Using the {\it James Webb} Space…
Four microlensing collaborations are presently searching for compact matter in the Galaxy and all have detected possible candidates. Using the detection efficiencies recently published by the MACHO and OGLE collaborations, we present…
Space-based microlens parallax measurements are a powerful tool for understanding planet populations, especially their distribution throughout the Galaxy. However, if space-based observations of the microlensing events must be specifically…
Estimating the number of microlensing events observed in different parts of the Galactic bulge is a crucial point in planning microlensing experiments. Reliable estimates are especially important if observing resources are scarce, as is the…
We present the photometric analysis of Gaia19bld, a high-magnification ($A\approx60$) microlensing event located in the southern Galactic plane, which exhibited finite source and microlensing parallax effects. Due to a prompt detection by…
Gravitational microlensing finds planets through their gravitational influence on the light coming from a more distant background star. The presence of the planet is then inferred from the tell-tale brightness variations of the background…
We report on our search for microlensing towards the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Analysis of 5.7 years of photometry on 11.9 million stars in the LMC reveals 13 - 17 microlensing events. This is significantly more than the $\sim$ 2 to 4…
Gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics are two independent methods, based solely on gravity, to study the mass distributions of galaxies. Both methods suffer from degeneracies, however, that are difficult to break. In this paper, we…
Massive Compact objects in the halo, known as MACHOs, have been postulated as the origin of a substantial fraction of `dark matter' known to exist in the haloes of galaxies$^{1,2}$. Paczy\'nski$^3$ has suggested that it might possible to…