878 research outputs found
Object DUO 2: A New Binary Lens Candidate
We present the light curve of an unusual variable object, DUO 2, detected
during the search for microlensing events by the DUO project. The star remained
stable for more than 150 days before it brightened by more than two magnitudes
in 6 days in the B and R bands. The light curves are achromatic during the
variability. We consider possible explanations of the photometric behavior,
with particular emphasis on the binary lens interpretation of the event. The
masses of the lenses are quite small, with the companion possibly in the range
of a brown dwarf or even a few times of Jupiter. We report evidence of blending
of the source by a companion through the first detection of shift in the light
centroid among all the microlensing experiments. This shift sets a lower limit
of on the separation between the stars. The best lens
model obtained requires moderate blending, which was what motivated us to check
the centroid shift that was subsequently found. The best lens model predicts a
separation of between the two blended stars. This prediction
was recently tested using two CCD images taken under good seeing conditions.
Both images show two components. Their separation and position angle are in
good agreement with our model.Comment: uuencoded, compressed PostScript, 4 pages, 4 figures (in text).
Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letter
Variable Stars in the Globular Cluster M5. Application of the Image Subtraction Method
We present -band light curves of 61 variables from the core of the
globular cluster M5 obtained using a newly developed image subtraction method
(ISM). Four of these variables were previously unknown. Only 26 variables were
found in the same field using photometry obtained with DoPHOT software. Fourier
parameters of the ISM light curves have relative errors up to 20 times smaller
than parameters measured from DoPHOT photometry. We conclude that the new
method is very promising for searching for variable stars in the cores of the
globular clusters and gives very accurate relative photometry with quality
comparable to photometry obtained by HST. We also show that the variable V104
is not an eclipsing star as has been suggested, but is an RRc star showing
non-radial pulsations.Comment: submitted to MNRAS, 9 pages, 4 figure
Using Astrometry to Deblend Microlensing Events
We discuss the prospect of deblending microlensing events by observing
astrometric shifts of the lensed stars. Since microlensing searches are
generally performed in very crowded fields, it is expected that stars will be
confusion limited rather than limited by photon statistics. By performing
simulations of events in crowded fields, we find that if we assume a dark lens
and that the lensed star obeys a power law luminosity function, , over half the simulated events show a measurable astrometric
shift. Our simulations included 20000 stars in a Nyquist
sampled CCD frame. For , we found that 58% of the events were
significantly blended , and of those, 73% had a
large astrometric shift . Likewise, for , we found
that 85% of the events were significantly blended, and that 85% of those had
large shifts. Moreover, the shift is weakly correlated to the degree of
blending, suggesting that it may be possible not only to detect the existence
of a blend, but also to deblend events statistically using shift information.Comment: 24 pages, 7 postscript Figure
Observation of Microlensing towards the Galactic Spiral Arms. EROS II 2 year survey
We present the analysis of the light curves of 8.5 million stars observed
during two seasons by EROS (Experience de Recherche d'Objets Sombres), in the
galactic plane away from the bulge. Three stars have been found that exhibit
luminosity variations compatible with gravitational microlensing effects due to
unseen objects. The corresponding optical depth, averaged over four directions,
is 0.38 (+0.53, -0.15) 10^{-6}. All three candidates have long Einstein radius
crossing times ( 70 to 100 days). For one of them, the lack of evidence
for a parallax or a source size effect enabled us to constrain the lens-source
% geometric configuration. Another candidate displays a modulation of the
magnification, which is compatible with the lensing of a binary source.
The interpretation of the optical depths inferred from these observations is
hindered by the imperfect knowledge of the distance to the target stars. Our
measurements are compatible with expectations from simple galactic models under
reasonable assumptions on the target distances.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, accepted by A&A in Aug 9
Bias-Free Shear Estimation using Artificial Neural Networks
Bias due to imperfect shear calibration is the biggest obstacle when
constraints on cosmological parameters are to be extracted from large area weak
lensing surveys such as Pan-STARRS-3pi, DES or future satellite missions like
Euclid. We demonstrate that bias present in existing shear measurement
pipelines (e.g. KSB) can be almost entirely removed by means of neural
networks. In this way, bias correction can depend on the properties of the
individual galaxy instead on being a single global value. We present a
procedure to train neural networks for shear estimation and apply this to
subsets of simulated GREAT08 RealNoise data. We also show that circularization
of the PSF before measuring the shear reduces the scatter related to the PSF
anisotropy correction and thus leads to improved measurements, particularly on
low and medium signal-to-noise data. Our results are competitive with the best
performers in the GREAT08 competition, especially for the medium and higher
signal-to-noise sets. Expressed in terms of the quality parameter defined by
GREAT08 we achieve a Q = 40, 140 and 1300 without and 50, 200 and 1300 with
circularization for low, medium and high signal-to-noise data sets,
respectively.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; accepted for publication in Ap
Difference image photometry with bright variable backgrounds
Over the last two decades the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) has been something of a
test-bed for methods aimed at obtaining accurate time-domain relative
photometry within highly crowded fields. Difference imaging methods, originally
pioneered towards M31, have evolved into sophisticated methods, such as the
Optimal Image Subtraction (OIS) method of Alard & Lupton (1998), that today are
most widely used to survey variable stars, transients and microlensing events
in our own Galaxy. We show that modern difference image (DIA) algorithms such
as OIS, whilst spectacularly successful towards the Milky Way bulge, may
perform badly towards high surface brightness targets such as the M31 bulge.
Poor results can occur in the presence of common systematics which add spurious
flux contributions to images, such as internal reflections, scattered light or
fringing. Using data from the Angstrom Project microlensing survey of the M31
bulge, we show that very good results are usually obtainable by first
performing careful photometric alignment prior to using OIS to perform
point-spread function (PSF) matching. This separation of background matching
and PSF matching, a common feature of earlier M31 photometry techniques, allows
us to take full advantage of the powerful PSF matching flexibility offered by
OIS towards high surface brightness targets. We find that difference images
produced this way have noise distributions close to Gaussian, showing
significant improvement upon results achieved using OIS alone. We show that
with this correction light-curves of variable stars and transients can be
recovered to within ~10 arcseconds of the M31 nucleus. Our method is simple to
implement and is quick enough to be incorporated within real-time DIA
pipelines. (Abridged)Comment: 12 pages. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Includes an expanded
discussion of DIA testing and results, including additional lightcurve
example
MACHO Mass Determination Based on Space Telescope Observation
We investigate the possibility of lens mass determination for a caustic
crossing microlensing event based on a space telescope observation. We
demonstrate that the parallax due to the orbital motion of a space telescope
causes a periodic fluctuation of the light curve, from which the lens distance
can be derived. Since the proper motion of the lens relative to the source is
also measurable for a caustic crossing event, one can find a full solution for
microlensing properties of the event, including the lens mass. To determine the
lens mass with sufficient accuracy, the light curve near the caustic crossing
should be observed within uncertainty of 1%. We argue that the Hubble
Space Telescope observation of the caustic crossing supplied with ground-based
observations of the full light curve will enable us to determine the mass of
MACHOs, which is crucial for understanding the nature of MACHOs.Comment: 9 pages + 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Towards Locating the Brightest Microlensing Events on the Sky
It is estimated that a star brighter than visual magnitude 17 is undergoing a
detectable gravitational microlensing event, somewhere on the sky, at any given
time. It is assumed that both lenses and sources are normal stars drawn from a
standard Bahcall-Soneira model of our Galaxy. Furthermore, over the time scale
of a year, a star 15th magnitude or brighter should undergo a detectable
gravitational lens amplification. Detecting and studying the microlensing event
rate among the brightest 10 stars could yield a better understanding of
Galactic stellar and dark matter distributions. Diligent tracking of bright
microlensing events with even small telescopes might detect planets orbiting
these stellar lenses.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Ap
The hydrogen isotopic composition of fossil micrometeorites: Implications for the origin of water on Earth.
Accepted versio
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
- …