Related papers: Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud Objects: Microlenses or…
A galaxy cluster acts as a cosmic telescope over background galaxies but also as a cosmic microscope of the lens imperfections. The diverging magnification of lensing caustics enhances the microlensing effect of substructure present within…
We present calculations illustrating the potential of gravitational microlensing to discriminate between classical models of stellar surface brightness profiles and the recently computed ``Next Generation'' models of Hauschildt et al. These…
Under the current microlensing planet search strategy of monitoring events caused by stellar-mass lenses, only planets located within a narrow region of separations from central stars can be effectively detected. However, with the dramatic…
It has been shown by Paczy\'nski that gravitational microlensing is potentially a useful method for detecting the dark constituents of the halo of our galaxy, if their mass lies in the approximate domain $10^{-6} < M/M_{\odot} < 10^{-1}$.…
Most of the matter in the universe is not luminous and can be observed directly only through its gravitational effect. An emerging technique called weak gravitational lensing uses background galaxies to reveal the foreground dark matter…
We investigate gravitational lensing effects of an extrasolar planet transiting its host star. We focus on the `rising spikes' of the light curve just before and after the transit, which is a peculiar feature of the gravitational lensing,…
Context: Occultations of stars by asteroids are an efficient method to study the properties of minor bodies, and can be exploited as tools to derive very precise asteroid astrometry relative to the target star. With the availability of…
We investigate the possibility of using globular clusters as targets for microlensing searches. Such searches will be challenging and require more powerful telescopes than now employed, but are feasible in the 0 future. Although expected…
We investigate the possibility of identifying massive objects (lenses) in the Galactic Center region (GC) by means of pulsar timing. The well known intensity change due to microlensing is found to be less important. For typical stellar…
The small bodies in the Kuiper Belt region of the distant Solar System are leftovers from planet formation. Their orbital distribution today tells us about how giant planets migrated, while their surface properties, shapes, and sizes tell…
The detection of microlensing events from stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud and in the Galactic bulge raise important constraints on the distribution of dark matter and on galactic structure, although some events may be due to a new type…
The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) will detect objects in the Kuiper Belt, by measuring the rate of occultations of stars by these objects, using an array of three to four 50cm wide-field robotic telescopes. Thousands of stars…
Microlensing can access planet populations that no other method can probe: cold wide-orbit planets beyond the snow line, planets in both the Galactic bulge and disk, and free floating planets (FFPs). The demographics of each population will…
Experiments are looking for diffuse brown dwarfs in the dark galactic halo through the gravitational lens effect. If brown dwarfs are clumped in dark clusters, the event rate is not changed, but events are spatially clustered, and stars…
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…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies can probe the total projected mass distribution of foreground gravitational structures on all scales and has been used successfully to map the projected mass distribution of rich intermediate…
In this paper we investigate the opportunities provided by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) for significant scientific advances in the study of solar system bodies and rings using stellar occultations. The strengths and weaknesses of…
Natural (such as lunar) occultations have long been used to study sources on small angular scales, while coronographs have been used to study high contrast sources. We propose launching the Big Occulting Steerable Satellite (BOSS), a large…
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…