相关论文: Planet Detection via Microlensing

Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…

Microlensing is one of the most promising methods of reconstructing the stellar mass function down to masses even below the hydrogen-burning limit. The fundamental limit to this technique is the presence of unresolved binaries, which can in…

We present a new method to identify and probe planetary companions of stars in the Galactic Bulge and Magellanic Clouds using gravitational microlensing. While spectroscopic studies of these planets is well beyond current observational…

[abridged] WFIRST is uniquely capable of finding planets with masses as small as Mars at separations comparable to Jupiter, i.e., beyond the current ice lines of their stars. These planets fall between the close-in planets found by Kepler…

There is a remarkable synergy between requirements for Dark Energy probes by cosmic shear measurements and planet hunting by microlensing. Employing weak and strong gravitational lensing to trace and detect the distribution of matter on…

In this paper we discuss how we can read a planets spectrum to assess its habitability and search for the signatures of a biosphere. After a decade rich in giant exoplanet detections, observation techniques have now reached the ability to…

The next generation of high-contrast imaging instruments will provide the first unresolved image of an extrasolar planet. While the emitted infrared light from the planet in thermal equilibrium should show almost no phase effect, the…

The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets with a wide range of masses demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist. In this paper we describe a mission,…

Direct detection and characterization of Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars is a core task for evaluating the prevalence of habitability and life in the Universe. Here, we discuss a promising option for achieving this goal, which is…

We revisit the possibility of detecting an extrasolar planet around a background star as it crosses the fold caustic of a foreground binary lens. During such an event, the planet's flux can be magnified by a factor of ~100 or more. The…

In the coming decades, research in extrasolar planets aims to advance two goals: 1) detecting and characterizing low-mass planets increasingly similar to the Earth, and 2) improving our understanding of planet formation. We present a new…

Although the extra-solar planets discovered so far are of the giant, gaseous, type, the increased sensitivity of future surveys will result in the discovery of lower mass planets. The detection of O2 in the atmosphere of a rocky extra-solar…

Up to date, only 13 firmly established triple microlensing events have been discovered, so the occurrence rates of microlensing two-planet systems and planets in binary systems are still uncertain. With the upcoming space-based microlensing…

The search for exoplanets is an active field in astronomy, with direct imaging as one of the most challenging methods due to faint exoplanet signals buried within stronger residual starlight. Successful detection requires advanced image…

Planetary systems toward the Galactic Bulge can be detected through microlensing measurements. The microlensing planet search technique has some unique merits: low-mass planets can be detected from the ground; the Galactic family of…

Planetary companions to the source stars of a caustic-crossing binary microlensing events can be detected via the deviation from the parent light curves created when the caustic magnifies the star light reflecting off the atmosphere or…

A microlensing exoplanet search is a unique method for finding planets orbiting distant stars. However, in the past, the method used to analyze microlensing data could not deal with complex lens systems. The number of lenses was limited…

To move one step forward toward a Galactic distribution of planets, we present the first planet sensitivity analysis for microlensing events with simultaneous observations from space and the ground. We present this analysis for two such…

The simple physics of microlensing provides a well-understood tool with which to probe the atmospheres of distant stars in the Galaxy and Local Group with high magnification and resolution. Recent results in measuring stellar surface…

The successful prediction of lensing events is a new and exciting enterprise that provides opportunities to discover and study planetary systems. The companion paper investigates the underlying theory. This paper is devoted to outlining the…