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

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

Dynamics of parametric fluctuations induced by quasiparticle tunneling in superconducting flux qubits

We present experiments on the dynamics of a two-state parametric fluctuator in a superconducting flux qubit. In spectroscopic measurements, the fluctuator manifests itself as a doublet line. When the qubit is excited in resonance with one of the two doublet lines, the correlation of readout results exhibits an exponential time decay which provides a measure of the fluctuator transition rate. The rate increases with temperature in the interval 40 to 158 mK. Based on the magnitude of the transition rate and the doublet line splitting we conclude that the fluctuation is induced by quasiparticle tunneling. These results demonstrate the importance of considering quasiparticles as a source of decoherence in flux qubits.Comment: 12 pages, including supplementary informatio

Probing the Mass Fraction of MACHOs in Extragalactic Halos

Current microlensing searches calibrate the mass fraction of the Milky Way halo which is in the form of Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). We show that surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) can probe the same quantity in halos of distant galaxies. Microlensing of background quasars by MACHOs in intervening galaxies would distort the equivalent width distribution of the quasar emission lines by an amplitude that depends on the projected quasar-galaxy separation. For a statistical sample of detectable at the >2sigma level out to a quasar-galaxy impact parameter of several tens of kpc, as long as extragalactic halos are made of MACHOs. Detection of this signal would test whether the MACHO fraction inferred for the Milky-Way halo is typical of other galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, submitted to ApJ Letter

Transverse Lepton Polarization in Polarized W Decays

Calculations of transverse polarization of leptons in the decay $W\rightarrow l\nu$ with polarized $W$'s are presented. Planned accelerators will produce enough $W$'s for observation of the Standard Model contributions to this polarization. One loop corrections to the polarization are given; these are too small to be seen at presently available $W$ sources. The exchange of Majorons will contribute to these polarizations; these may provide limits on the couplings of these particles to leptons.Comment: 8 pages set in RevTex III and 4 uucompressed figures. This revised version studies polarization effects due to the exchange of charged Majoron doublet

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

Quantum amplification effect in a horizon fluctuations

The appearance of a few unevenly- spaced bright flashes of light on top of Hawking radiation is the sign of the amplification effect in black hole horizon fluctuations. Previous studies on this problem suffer from the lack of considering all emitted photons in the theoretical spectroscopy of these fluctuations. In this paper, we include all of the physical transition weights and present a consistent intensity formula. This modifies a black hole radiation pattern.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Large Magellanic Cloud Microlensing Optical Depth with Imperfect Event Selection

I present a new analysis of the MACHO Project 5.7 year Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) microlensing data set that incorporates the effects of contamination of the microlensing event sample by variable stars. Photometric monitoring of MACHO LMC microlensing event candidates by the EROS and OGLE groups has revealed that one of these events is likely to be a variable star, while additional data has confirmed that many of the other events are very likely to be microlensing. This additional data on the nature of the MACHO microlensing candidates is incorporated into a simple likelihood analysis to derive a probability distribution for the number of MACHO microlens candidates that are true microlensing events. This analysis shows that 10-12 of the 13 events that passed the MACHO selection criteria are likely to be microlensing events, with the other 1-3 being variable stars. This likelihood analysis is also used to show that the main conclusions of the MACHO LMC analysis are unchanged by the variable star contamination. The microlensing optical depth toward the LMC is = 1.0 +/- 0.3 * 10^{-7}. If this is due to microlensing by known stellar populations, plus an additional population of lens objects in the Galactic halo, then the new halo population would account for 16% of the mass of a standard Galactic halo. The MACHO detection exceeds the expected background of 2 events expected from ordinary stars in standard models of the Milky Way and LMC at the 99.98% confidence level. The background prediction is increased to 3 events if maximal disk models are assumed for both the MilkyWay and LMC, but this model fails to account for the full signal seen by MACHO at the 99.8% confidence level.Comment: 20 pages, 2 postscript figues, accepted by Ap