No Arabic abstract
Some low-mass planets are expected to be ejected from their parent planetary systems during early stages of planetary system formation. According to planet-formation theories, such as the core accretion theory, typical masses of ejected planets should be between 0.3 and 1.0 $M_{oplus}$. Although in practice such objects do not emit any light, they may be detected using gravitational microlensing via their light-bending gravity. Microlensing events due to terrestrial-mass rogue planets are expected to have extremely small angular Einstein radii (< 1 uas) and extremely short timescales (< 0.1 day). Here, we present the discovery of the shortest-timescale microlensing event, OGLE-2016-BLG-1928, identified to date ($t_{rm E} approx 0.0288 mathrm{day} = 41.5 mathrm{min}$). Thanks to the detection of finite-source effects in the light curve of the event, we were able to measure the angular Einstein radius of the lens $theta_{rm E} = 0.842 pm 0.064$ uas, making the event the most extreme short-timescale microlens discovered to date. Depending on its unknown distance, the lens may be a Mars- to Earth-mass object, with the former possibility favored by the Gaia proper motion measurement of the source. The planet may be orbiting a star but we rule out the presence of stellar companions up to the projected distance of 8.0 au from the planet. Our discovery demonstrates that terrestrial-mass free-floating planets can be detected and characterized using microlensing.
KMT-2016-BLG-2605, with planet-host mass ratio $q=0.012pm 0.001$, has the shortest Einstein timescale, $t_e = 3.41pm 0.13,$days, of any planetary microlensing event to date. This prompts us to examine the full sample of 7 short ($t_e<7,$day) planetary events with good $q$ measurements. We find that six have clustered Einstein radii $theta_e = 115pm 20,muas$ and lens-source relative proper motions $mu_relsimeq 9.5pm 2.5,masyr$. For the seventh, these two quantities could not be measured. These distributions are consistent with a Galactic-bulge population of very low-mass (VLM) hosts near the hydrogen-burning limit. This conjecture could be verified by imaging at first adaptive-optics light on next-generation (30m) telescopes. Based on a preliminary assessment of the sample, planetary companions (i.e., below the deuterium-burning limit) are divided into genuine planets, formed in their disks by core accretion, and very low-mass brown dwarfs, which form like stars. We discuss techniques for expanding the sample, which include taking account of the peculiar anomaly dominated morphology of the KMT-2016-BLG-2605 light curve.
High-cadence observations of the Galactic bulge by the microlensing surveys led to the discovery of a handful of extremely short-timescale microlensing events that can be attributed to free-floating or wide-orbit planets. Here, we report the discovery of another strong free-floating planet candidate, which was found from the analysis of the gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2019-BLG-0551. The light curve of the event is characterized by a very short duration (<3 d) and a very small amplitude (< 0.1 mag). From modeling of the light curve, we find that the Einstein timescale, tE = 0.381 +/- 0.017 d, is much shorter, and the angular Einstein radius, thetaE = 4.35 +/- 0.34 uas, is much smaller than those of typical lensing events produced by stellar-mass lenses (tE ~ 20 d, thetaE ~ 0.3 mas), indicating that the lens is very likely to be a planetary-mass object. We conduct an extensive search for possible signatures of a companion star in the light curve of the event, finding no significant evidence for the putative host star. For the first time, we also demonstrate that the angular Einstein radius of the lens does not depend on blending in the low-magnification events with strong finite source effects.
We aim to find missing microlensing planets hidden in the unanalyzed lensing events of previous survey data. For this purpose, we conduct a systematic inspection of high-magnification microlensing events, with peak magnifications $A_{rm peak}gtrsim 30$, in the data collected from high-cadence surveys in and before the 2018 season. From this investigation, we identify an anomaly in the lensing light curve of the event KMT-2018-BLG-1025. The analysis of the light curve indicates that the anomaly is caused by a very low mass-ratio companion to the lens. We identify three degenerate solutions, in which the ambiguity between a pair of solutions (solutions B) is caused by the previously known close--wide degeneracy, and the degeneracy between these and the other solution (solution A) is a new type that has not been reported before. The estimated mass ratio between the planet and host is $qsim 0.8times 10^{-4}$ for the solution A and $qsim 1.6times 10^{-4}$ for the solutions B. From the Bayesian analysis conducted with measured observables, we estimate that the masses of the planet and host and the distance to the lens are $(M_{rm p}, M_{rm h}, D_{rm L})sim (6.1~M_oplus, 0.22~M_odot, 6.7~{rm kpc})$ for the solution A and $sim (4.4~M_oplus, 0.08~M_odot, 7.5~{rm kpc})$ for the solutions B. The planet mass is in the category of a super-Earth regardless of the solutions, making the planet the eleventh super-Earth planet, with masses lying between those of Earth and the Solar systems ice giants, discovered by microlensing.
We report a giant exoplanet discovery in the microlensing event OGLE-2017-BLG-1049, which is a planet-host star mass ratio of $q=9.53pm0.39times10^{-3}$ and has a caustic crossing feature in the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) observations. The caustic crossing feature yields an angular Einstein radius of $theta_{rm E}=0.52 pm 0.11 {rm mas}$. However, the microlens parallax is not measured because of the time scale of the event $t_{rm E}simeq 29 {rm days}$, which is not long enough in this case to determine the microlens parallax. Thus, we perform a Bayesian analysis to estimate physical quantities of the lens system. From this, we find that the lens system has a star with mass $M_{rm h}=0.55^{+0.36}_{-0.29} M_{odot}$ hosting a giant planet with $M_{rm p}=5.53^{+3.62}_{-2.87} M_{rm Jup}$, at a distance of $D_{rm L}=5.67^{+1.11}_{-1.52} {rm kpc}$. The projected star-planet separation in units of the Einstein radius $(theta_{rm E})$ corresponding to the total mass of the lens system is $a_{perp}=3.92^{+1.10}_{-1.32} rm{au}$. This means that the planet is located beyond the snow line of the host. The relative lens-source proper motion is $mu_{rm rel}sim 7 rm{mas yr^{-1}}$, thus the lens and source will be separated from each other within 10 years. Then the flux of the host star can be measured by a 30m class telescope with high-resolution imaging in the future, and thus its mass can be determined.
We present the analysis of a very high-magnification ($Asim 900$) microlensing event KMT-2019-BLG-1953. A single-lens single-source (1L1S) model appears to approximately delineate the observed light curve, but the residuals from the model exhibit small but obvious deviations in the peak region. A binary lens (2L1S) model with a mass ratio $qsim 2times 10^{-3}$ improves the fits by $Deltachi^2=181.8$, indicating that the lens possesses a planetary companion. From additional modeling by introducing an extra planetary lens component (3L1S model) and an extra source companion (2L2S model), it is found that the residuals from the 2L1S model further diminish, but claiming these interpretations is difficult due to the weak signals with $Deltachi^2=16.0$ and $13.5$ for the 3L1S and 2L2L models, respectively. From a Bayesian analysis, we estimate that the host of the planets has a mass of $M_{rm host}=0.31^{+0.37}_{-0.17}~M_odot$ and that the planetary system is located at a distance of $D_{rm L}=7.04^{+1.10}_{-1.33}~{rm kpc}$ toward the Galactic center. The mass of the securely detected planet is $M_{rm p}=0.64^{+0.76}_{-0.35}~M_{rm J}$. The signal of the potential second planet could have been confirmed if the peak of the light curve had been more densely observed by followup observations, and thus the event illustrates the need for intensive followup observations for very high-magnification events even in the current generation of high-cadence surveys.