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An ice giant exoplanet interpretation of the anomaly in microlensing event OGLE-2011-BLG-0173
We analyze the microlensing event OGLE-2011-BLG-0173, which shows a small
perturbation at the end of the microlensing event caused by the primary lens.
We consider both binary lens and binary source models and we explore their
degeneracies, some of which have not previously been recognized. There are two
families of binary lens solutions, one with a mass ratio
and a separation s~4.6 and the other with q~0.015 and
s~0.22, i.e, both have companions in the planetary regime. We search for
solutions by using Bayesian analysis that includes planet frequency as a prior
and find that the s~4.6 family is the preferred one with ~4 M_Uranus mass
planet on an orbit of ~10 AU. The degeneracies arise from a paucity of
information on the anomaly, demonstrating that high-cadence observations are
essential for characterizing wide-orbit microlensing planets. Hence, we predict
that the planned WFIRST microlensing survey will be less prone to these
degeneracies than the ongoing ground-based surveys. We discuss the known
low-mass, wide-orbit companions and we notice that for the largest projected
separations the mass ratios are either high (consistent with brown dwarf
companions) or low (consistent with Uranus analogs), but intermediate mass
ratios (Jupiter analogs on wide orbits) have not been detected to date, despite
the fact that the sensitivity to such planets should be higher than that of
Uranus analogs. This is therefore tentative evidence of the existence of a
massive ice giant desert at wide separations. On the other hand, given their
low intrinsic detection sensitivity, Uranus analogs may be ubiquitous.Comment: AJ accepted, 6 figures, 4 table
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