Measuring the Rotation Speed of Giant Stars From Gravitational Microlensing

During some gravitational lensing events, the lens transits the face of the star. This causes a shift in the apparent radial velocity of the star which is proportional to its rotation speed. It also changes the magnification relative to what would be expected for a point source. By measuring both effects, one can determine the rotation parameter $v\sin i$. The method is especially useful for K giant stars because these have turbulent velocities that are typically large compared with their rotation speed. By making a series of radial velocity measurements, one can typically determine $v\sin i$ to the same accuracy as the individual radial velocity measurements. There are approximately 10 microlensing transit events per year which would be suitable to make these measurements.Comment: 11 pages including 1 embedded figur

A New Channel for the Detection of Planetary Systems Through Microlensing: II. Repeating Events

In the companion paper we began the task of systematically studying the detection of planets in wide orbits ($a > 1.5 R_E$) via microlensing surveys. In this paper we continue, focusing on repeating events. We find that, if all planetary systems are similar to our own Solar System, reasonable extensions of the present observing strategies would allow us to detect 3-6 repeating events per year along the direction to the Bulge. Indeed, if planetary systems with multiple planets are common, then future monitoring programs which lead to the discovery of thousands of stellar-lens events will likely discover events in which several different planets within a single system serve as lenses, with light curves exhibiting multiple repetitions. In this paper we discuss observing strategies to maximize the discovery of all wide-orbit planet-lens events. We also compare the likely detection rates of planets in wide orbits to those of planets located in the zone for resonant lensing. We find that, depending on the values of the planet masses and stellar radii of the lensed sources (which determine whether or not finite source size is important), and also on the sensitivity of the photometry used by observers, the detection of planets in wide orbits may be the primary route to the discovery of planets via microlensing. We also discuss how the combination of resonant and wide-orbit events can help us to learn about the distribution of planetary system properties (S 6.1). In addition, by determining the fraction of short-duration events due to planets, we indirectly derive information about the fraction of all short-duration events that may be due to low-mass MACHOs (S 6.2).Comment: 51 pages, 7 figures. To be published in the Astrophysical Journal, 20 February 1999. This completes the introduction to the discovery of planets in wide orbits begun in astro-ph/9808075, also to appear in ApJ on 20 February 199

Microlensing Surveys of M31 in the Wide Field Imaging Era

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is the closest large galaxy to the Milky Way, thus it is an important laboratory for studying massive dark objects in galactic halos (MACHOs) by gravitational microlensing. Such studies strongly complement the studies of the Milky Way halo using the the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. We consider the possibilities for microlensing surveys of M31 using the next generation of wide field imaging telescopes with fields of view in the square degree range. We consider proposals for such imagers both on the ground and in space. For concreteness, we specialize to the SNAP proposal for a space telescope and the LSST proposal for a ground based telescope. We find that a modest space-based survey of 50 visits of one hour each is considerably better than current ground based surveys covering 5 years. Crucially, systematic effects can be considerably better controlled with a space telescope because of both the infrared sensitivity and the angular resolution. To be competitive, 8 meter class wide-field ground based imagers must take exposures of several hundred seconds with several day cadence.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

Baryonic acoustic oscillations simulations for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)

The baryonic acoustic oscillations are features in the spatial distribution of the galaxies which, if observed at different epochs, probe the nature of the dark energy. In order to be able to measure the parameters of the dark energy equation of state to high precision, a huge sample of galaxies has to be used. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will survey the optical sky with 6 filters from 300nm and 1100nm, such that a catalog of galaxies with photometric redshifts will be available for dark energy studies. In this article, we will give a rough estimate of the impact of the photometric redshift uncertainties on the computation of the dark energy parameter through the reconstruction of the BAO scale from a simulated photometric catalog.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 10th Rencontres de Blois proceedin

A New Channel for the Detection of Planetary Systems Through Microlensing: I. Isolated Events Due to Planet Lenses

We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, $a$ greater than $\sim 1.5 R_E$. Planets in wide orbits may provide the dominant channel for the microlensing discovery of planets, particularly low-mass (e.g., Earth-mass) planets. This paper concentrates on events in which a single planet serves as a lens, leading to an isolated event of short duration. We point out that a distribution of events due to lensing by stars with wide-orbit planets is necessarily accompanied by a distribution of shorter- duration events. The fraction of events in the latter distribution is proportional to the average value of $\sqrt{q}$, where $q$ is the ratio between \pl and stellar masses. The position of the peak or peaks also provides a measure of the mass ratios typical of planetary systems. We study detection strategies that can optimize our ability to discover isolated short-duration events due to lensing by planets, and find that monitoring employing sensitive photometry is particularly useful. If planetary systems similar to our own are common, even modest changes in detection strategy should lead to the discovery of a few isolated events of short duration every year. We therefore also address the issue of the contamination due to stellar populations of any microlensing signal due to low-mass MACHOs. We describe how, even for isolated events of short duration, it will be possible to test the hypothesis that the lens was a planet instead of a low-mass MACHO, if the central star of the planetary system contributes a measurable fraction of the baseline flux.Comment: 37 pages, 6 figure. To be published in the Astrophysical Journal. This is part one of a series of papers on microlensing by planetary systems containing wide-orbit planets; the series represents a reorganization and extension of astro-ph/971101

Improved Detection Rates for Close Binaries Via Astrometric Observations of Gravitational Microlensing Events

In addition to constructing a Galactic matter mass function free from the bias induced by the hydrogen-burning limit, gravitational microlensing allows one to construct a mass function which is less affected by the problem of unresolved binaries (Gaudi & Gould). However, even with the method of microlensing, the photometric detection of binaries is limited to binary systems with relatively large separations of $b\gtrsim 0.4$ of their combined Einstein ring radius, and thus the mass function is still not totally free from the problem of unresolved binaries. In this paper, we show that by detecting distortions of the astrometric ellipse of a microlensing event with high precision instruments such as the {\it Space Interferometry Mission}, one can detect close binaries at a much higher rate than by the photometric method. We find that by astrometrically observing microlensing events, $\sim 50$ of binaries with separations of $0.1r_{\rm E}$ can be detected with the detection threshold of 3%. The proposed astrometric method is especially efficient at detecting very close binaries. With a detection threshold of 3% and a rate of 10%, one can astrometrically detect binaries with separations down to $\sim 0.01r_{\rm E}$.Comment: total 14 pages, including 5 Figures and no Table (For figure 1, please send a request mail to [email protected]), accepted to ApJ (Vol 525, 000), updated versio

The autoepitope of the 74-kD mitochondrial autoantigen of primary biliary cirrhosis corresponds to the functional site of dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase.

Autoantibodies to mitochondrial antigens are characteristic of the autoimmune liver disease primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), but the precise antigenic determinants recognized by these antibodies have not been defined. Recently, our laboratory identified a 1,370-bp rat liver cDNA clone that coded for a polypeptide recognized specifically by sera from patients with PBC but not by sera from patients with other forms of liver disease. This recombinant protein was identified as the 74-kD M2 mitochondrial inner membrane autoantigen, now known to be dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase. In the present study, we have identified a 603-bp fragment that codes for a polypeptide containing all of the autoreactivity of the original clone. In addition, based on hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity plots of the amino acid sequence of this polypeptide segment, several peptides were synthesized and tested for reactivity by an inhibition assay using sera from patients with PBC. One peptide, defined by the amino acids AEIETDKATIGFEVQEEGYL, absorbed serum reactivity to the protein product of the original clone. Of particular interest was the finding that this peptide contains the lipoic acid binding site KATIGF of the dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase found in the inner mitochondrial membrane. Thus, it appears that for this autoantigen, the target of the autoantibodies corresponds to a functional site of the dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase

Microlensing toward crowded fields: Theory and applications to M31

We present a comprehensive treatment of the pixel-lensing theory and apply it to lensing experiments and their results toward M31. Using distribution functions for the distances, velocities, masses, and luminosities of stars, we derive lensing event rates as a function of the event observables. In contrast to the microlensing regime, in the pixel-lensing regime (crowded or unresolved sources) the observables are the maximum excess flux of the source above a background and the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) time of the event. To calculate lensing event distribution functions depending on these observables for the specific case of M31, we use data from the literature to construct a model of M31, reproducing consistently photometry, kinematics and stellar population. We predict the halo- and self-lensing event rates for bulge and disk stars in M31 and treat events with and without finite source signatures separately. We use the M31 photon noise profile and obtain the event rates as a function of position, field of view, and S/N threshold at maximum magnification. We calculate the expected rates for WeCAPP and for a potential Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) lensing campaign. The detection of two events with a peak signal-to-noise ratio larger than 10 and a timescale larger than 1 day in the WeCAPP 2000/2001 data is in good agreement with our theoretical calculations. We investigate the luminosity function of lensed stars for noise characteristics of WeCAPP and ACS. For the pixel-lensing regime, we derive the probability distribution for the lens masses in M31 as a function of the FWHM timescale, flux excess and color, including the errors of these observables.Comment: 45 pages, 27 figures LaTeX; corrected typos; published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplemen