No Arabic abstract
We report the first mass and distance measurement of a caustic-crossing binary system OGLE-2014-BLG-1050L using the space-based microlens parallax method. emph{Spitzer} captured the second caustic-crossing of the event, which occurred $sim$10 days before that seen from Earth. Due to the coincidence that the source-lens relative motion was almost parallel to the direction of the binary-lens axis, the four-fold degeneracy, which was known before only to occur in single-lens events, persists in this case, leading to either a lower-mass (0.2 $M_odot$ and 0.07 $M_odot$) binary at $sim$1.1 kpc or a higher-mass (0.9 $M_odot$ and 0.35 $M_odot$) binary at $sim$3.5 kpc. However, the latter solution is strongly preferred for reasons including blending and lensing probability. OGLE-2014-BLG-1050L demonstrates the power of microlens parallax in probing stellar and substellar binaries.
We present the first space-based microlens parallax measurement of an isolated star. From the striking differences in the lightcurve as seen from Earth and from Spitzer (~1 AU to the West), we infer a projected velocity v_helio,projected ~ 250 km/s, which strongly favors a lens in the Galactic Disk with mass M=0.23 +- 0.07 M_sun and distance D_L=3.1 +- 0.4 kpc. An ensemble of such measurements drawn from our ongoing program could be used to measure the single-lens mass function including dark objects, and also is necessary for measuring the Galactic distribution of planets since the ensemble reflects the underlying Galactic distribution of microlenses. We study the application of the many ideas to break the four-fold degeneracy first predicted by Refsdal 50 years ago. We find that this degeneracy is clearly broken, but by two unanticipated mechanisms.
We analyze the gravitational binary-lensing event OGLE-2016-BLG-0156, for which the lensing light curve displays pronounced deviations induced by microlens-parallax effects. The light curve exhibits 3 distinctive widely-separated peaks and we find that the multiple-peak feature provides a very tight constraint on the microlens-parallax effect, enabling us to precisely measure the microlens parallax $pi_{rm E}$. All the peaks are densely and continuously covered from high-cadence survey observations using globally located telescopes and the analysis of the peaks leads to the precise measurement of the angular Einstein radius $theta_{rm E}$. From the combination of the measured $pi_{rm E}$ and $theta_{rm E}$, we determine the physical parameters of the lens. It is found that the lens is a binary composed of two M dwarfs with masses $M_1=0.18pm 0.01 M_odot$ and $M_2=0.16pm 0.01 M_odot$ located at a distance $D_{rm L}= 1.35pm 0.09 {rm kpc}$. According to the estimated lens mass and distance, the flux from the lens comprises an important fraction, $sim 25%$, of the blended flux. The bright nature of the lens combined with the high relative lens-source motion, $mu=6.94pm 0.50 {rm mas} {rm yr}^{-1}$, suggests that the lens can be directly observed from future high-resolution follow-up observations.
We analyze the binary gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2017-BLG-1130 (mass ratio q~0.45), the first published case in which the binary anomaly was only detected by the Spitzer Space Telescope. This event provides strong evidence that some binary signals can be missed by observations from the ground alone but detected by Spitzer. We therefore invert the normal procedure, first finding the lens parameters by fitting the space-based data and then measuring the microlensing parallax using ground-based observations. We also show that the normal four-fold space-based degeneracy in the single-lens case can become a weak eight-fold degeneracy in binary-lens events. Although this degeneracy is resolved in event OGLE-2017-BLG-1130, it might persist in other events.
The kinematics of isolated brown dwarfs in the Galaxy, beyond the solar neighborhood, is virtually unknown. Microlensing has the potential to probe this hidden population, as it can measure both the mass and five of the six phase-space coordinates (all except the radial velocity) even of a dark isolated lens. However, the measurements of both the microlens parallax and finite-source effects are needed in order to recover the full information. Here, we combine $Spitzer$ satellite parallax measurement with the ground-based light curve, which exhibits strong finite-source effects, of event OGLE-2017-BLG-0896. We find two degenerate solutions for the lens (due to the known satellite-parallax degeneracy), which are consistent with each other except for their proper motion. The lens is an isolated brown dwarf with a mass of either $18pm1M_J$ or $20pm1M_J$. This is the lowest isolated-object mass measurement to date, only $sim$45% more massive than the theoretical deuterium-fusion boundary at solar metallicity, which is the common definition of a free-floating planet. The brown dwarf is located at either $3.9pm0.1$ kpc or $4.1pm0.1$ kpc toward the Galactic bulge, but with proper motion in the opposite direction of disk stars, with one solution suggesting it is moving within the Galactic plane. While it is possibly a halo brown dwarf, it might also represent a different, unknown population.
We report the discovery and analysis of the planetary microlensing event OGLE-2017-BLG-0406, which was observed both from the ground and by the ${it Spitzer}$ satellite in a solar orbit. At high magnification, the anomaly in the light curve was densely observed by ground-based-survey and follow-up groups, and it was found to be explained by a planetary lens with a planet/host mass ratio of $q=7.0 times 10^{-4}$ from the light-curve modeling. The ground-only and ${it Spitzer}$-only data each provide very strong one-dimensional (1-D) constraints on the 2-D microlens parallax vector $bf{pi_{rm E}}$. When combined, these yield a precise measurement of $bf{pi_{rm E}}$, and so of the masses of the host $M_{rm host}=0.56pm0.07,M_odot$ and planet $M_{rm planet} = 0.41 pm 0.05,M_{rm Jup}$. The system lies at a distance $D_{rm L}=5.2 pm 0.5 {rm kpc}$ from the Sun toward the Galactic bulge, and the host is more likely to be a disk population star according to the kinematics of the lens. The projected separation of the planet from the host is $a_{perp} = 3.5 pm 0.3 {rm au}$, i.e., just over twice the snow line. The Galactic-disk kinematics are established in part from a precise measurement of the source proper motion based on OGLE-IV data. By contrast, the ${it Gaia}$ proper-motion measurement of the source suffers from a catastrophic $10,sigma$ error.