W. Allen

MOA-2011-BLG-293Lb: A TEST OF PURE SURVEY MICROLENSING PLANET DETECTIONS

Mathematical and Physical Sciences: 1st Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)

The Extreme Microlensing Event OGLE-2007-BLG-224: Terrestrial Parallax Observation of a Thick-Disk Brown Dwarf

Parallax is the most fundamental technique for measuring distances to astronomical objects. Although terrestrial parallax was pioneered over 2000 years ago by Hipparchus (ca. 140 B.C.E.) to measure the distance to the Moon, the baseline of the Earth is so small that terrestrial parallax can generally only be applied to objects in the Solar System. However, there exists a class of extreme gravitational microlensing events in which the effects of terrestrial parallax can be readily detected and so permit the measurement of the distance, mass, and transverse velocity of the lens. Here we report observations of the first such extreme microlensing event OGLE-2007-BLG-224, from which we infer that the lens is a brown dwarf of mass M = 0.056 ± 0.004 M ☉, with a distance of 525 ± 40 pc and a transverse velocity of 113 ± 21 km s–1. The velocity places the lens in the thick disk, making this the lowest-mass thick-disk brown dwarf detected so far. Follow-up observations may allow one to observe the light from the brown dwarf itself, thus serving as an important constraint for evolutionary models of these objects and potentially opening a new window on substellar objects. The low a priori probability of detecting a thick-disk brown dwarf in this event, when combined with additional evidence from other observations, suggests that old substellar objects may be more common than previously assumed.

EXTREME MAGNIFICATION MICROLENSING EVENT OGLE-2008-BLG-279: STRONG LIMITS ON PLANETARY COMPANIONS TO THE LENS STAR

We analyze the extreme high-magnification microlensing event OGLE-2008-BLG-279, which peaked at a maximum magnification of A ~ 1600 on 2008 May 30. The peak of this event exhibits both finite-source effects and terrestrial parallax, from which we determine the mass of the lens, Ml = 0.64 ? 0.10 M ?, and its distance, Dl = 4.0 ? 0.6 kpc. We rule out Jupiter-mass planetary companions to the lens star for projected separations in the range 0.5-20 AU. More generally, we find that this event was sensitive to planets with masses as small as with projected separations near the Einstein ring (~3 AU).

PLUTO'S ATMOSPHERE FROM THE 2015 JUNE 29 GROUND-BASED STELLAR OCCULTATION AT THE TIME OF THE NEW HORIZONS FLYBY *

We present results from a multi-chord Pluto stellar occultation observed on 2015 June 29 from New Zealand and Australia. This occurred only two weeks before the NASA New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system and serves as a useful comparison between ground-based and space results. We find that Plutos atmosphere is still expanding, with a significant pressure increase of 5 ± 2% since 2013 and a factor of almost three since 1988. This trend rules out, as of today, an atmospheric collapse associated with Plutos recession from the Sun. A central flash, a rare occurrence, was observed from several sites in New Zealand. The flash shape and amplitude are compatible with a spherical and transparent atmospheric layer of roughly 3 km in thickness whose base lies at about 4 km above Plutos surface, and where an average thermal gradient of about 5 K km−1 prevails. We discuss the possibility that small departures between the observed and modeled flash are caused by local topographic features (mountains) along Plutos limb that block the stellar light. Finally, using two possible temperature profiles, and extrapolating our pressure profile from our deepest accessible level down to the surface, we obtain a possible range of 11.9–13.7 μbar for the surface pressure.

GRB 091029: at the limit of the fireball scenario

Aims. Using high-quality, broad-band afterglow data for GRB 091029, we test the validity of the forward-shock model for gamma-ray burst afterglows. Methods. We used multi-wavelength (NIR to X-ray) follow-up observations obtained with the GROND, BOOTES-3/YA and Stardome optical ground-based telescopes, and the UVOT and the XRT onboard the Swift satellite. The resulting data of excellent accuracy allow us to construct a multi-wavelength light curve with relative photometric errors as low as 1%, as well as the well-sampled spectral energy distribution covering 5 decades in energy. Results. The optical/NIR and the X-ray light curves of the afterglow of GRB 091029 are almost totally decoupled. The X-ray light curve shows a shallow rise with a peak at ∼7 ks and a decay slope of α ∼ 1.2 afterwards, while the optical/NIR light curve shows a much steeper early rise with a peak around 400 s, followed by a shallow decay with temporal index of α ∼ 0.6, a bump and a steepening of the decay afterwards. The optical/NIR spectral index decreases gradually by over 0.3 before this bump, and then slowly increases again, while the X-ray spectral index remains constant throughout the observations. Conclusions. To explain the decoupled light curves in the X-ray and optical/NIR domains, a two-component outflow is proposed. Several models are tested, including continuous energy injection, components with different electron energy indices and components in two different stages of spectral evolution. Only the last model can explain both the decoupled light curves with asynchronous peaks and the peculiar SED evolution. However, this model has so many unknown free parameters that we are unable to reliably confirm or disprove its validity, making the afterglow of GRB 091029 difficult to explain in the framework of the simplest fireball model. This conclusion provides evidence that a scenario beyond the simplistic assumptions is needed to be able to model the growing number of well-sampled afterglow light curves.

Mass measurement of a single unseen star and planetary detection efficiency for OGLE 2007-BLG-050

We analyze OGLE-2007-BLG-050, a high magnification microlensing event (A ~ 432) whose peak occurred on 2 May, 2007, with pronounced finite-source and parallax effects. We compute planet detection efficiencies for this event in order to determine its sensitivity to the presence of planets around the lens star. Both finite-source and parallax effects permit a measurement of the angular Einstein radius theta_E = 0.48 +/- 0.01 mas and the parallax pi_E = 0.12 +/- 0.03, leading to an estimate of the lens mass M = 0.50 +/- 0.14 M_Sun and its distance to the observer D_L = 5.5 +/- 0.4 kpc. This is only the second determination of a reasonably precise (<30%) mass estimate for an isolated unseen object, using any method. This allows us to calculate the planetary detection efficiency in physical units (r_perp, m_p), where r_perp is the projected planet-star separation and m_p is the planet mass. When computing planet detection efficiency, we did not find any planetary signature and our detection efficiency results reveal significant sensitivity to Neptune-mass planets, and to a lesser extent Earth-mass planets in some configurations. Indeed, Jupiter and Neptune-mass planets are excluded with a high confidence for a large projected separation range between the planet and the lens star, respectively [0.6 - 10] and [1.4 - 4] AU, and Earth-mass planets are excluded with a 10% confidence in the lensing zone, i.e. [1.8 - 3.1] AU.

The First Circumbinary Planet Found by Microlensing: OGLE-2007-BLG-349L(AB)c

© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present the analysis of the first circumbinary planet microlensing event, OGLE-2007-BLG-349. This event has a strong planetary signal that is best fit with a mass ratio of q ≈ 3.4 × 10-4, but there is an additional signal due to an additional lens mass, either another planet or another star. We find acceptable light-curve fits with two classes of models: two-planet models (with a single host star) and circumbinary planet models. The light curve also reveals a significant microlensing parallax effect, which constrains the mass of the lens system to be M L ≈ 0.7 M⊙. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images resolve the lens and source stars from their neighbors and indicate excess flux due to the star(s) in the lens system. This is consistent with the predicted flux from the circumbinary models, where the lens mass is shared between two stars, but there is not enough flux to be consistent with the two-planet, one-star models. So, only the circumbinary models are consistent with the HST data. They indicate a planet of mass m c = 80 ± 13 M⊙, orbiting a pair of M dwarfs with masses of M A = 0.41 ± 0.07 and M B = 0.30 ± 0.07, which makes this the lowest-mass circumbinary planet system known. The ratio of the separation between the planet and the center of mass to the separation of the two stars is ∼40, so unlike most of the circumbinary planets found by Kepler, the planet does not orbit near the stability limit.

Possible observation of 100 TeV gamma rays from the active galaxy Centaurus a

Abstract We have searched for evidence of ultra-high energy gamma rays from the active galaxy Centaurus A in the data set of the JANZOS experiment during the period 13 October 1987 to 18 January 1992. No significant DC excess was found from this source. Excess events were found, however, in the period 14 April – 3 June 1990. The duration of the excess, 48 days, and equivalent luminosity, ~ 10 43 erg s −1 , are both similar to those measured previously for X-ray outbursts of Centaurus A. Furthermore, the events appear to exhibit the expected absorption feature at 200 TeV due to interactions with the 2.7 K background radiation, but the chance probability for the excess is at the 2% level. The equivalent time averaged flux during this period was (5.5 ± 1.5) × 10 −12 photons cm −2 s −1 at energies ≥ 110 TeV, about 20 times as large as the upper lim of steady emission, assuming a differential spectral index of −2.0. Further observations are required to confirm the result

A possible binary system of a stellar remnant in the high-magnification gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2007-BLG-514

We report the extremely high-magnification (A > 1000) binary microlensing event OGLE-2007-BLG-514. We obtained good coverage around the double peak structure in the light curve via follow-up observations from different observatories. The binary lens model that includes the effects of parallax (known orbital motion of the Earth) and orbital motion of the lens yields a binary lens mass ratio of q = 0.321 ± 0.007 and a projected separation of s = 0.072 ± 0.001 in units of the Einstein radius. The parallax parameters allow us to determine the lens distance D_L = 3.11 ± 0.39 kpc and total mass M_L = 1.40 ± 0.18 M_☉; this leads to the primary and secondary components having masses of M_1 = 1.06 ± 0.13 M_☉ and M_2 = 0.34 ± 0.04 M_☉, respectively. The parallax model indicates that the binary lens system is likely constructed by the main-sequence stars. On the other hand, we used a Bayesian analysis to estimate probability distributions by the model that includes the effects of xallarap (possible orbital motion of the source around a companion) and parallax (q = 0.270 ± 0.005, s = 0.083 ± 0.001). The primary component of the binary lens is relatively massive, with M_1 = 0.9^(+4.6)_(–0.3) M_☉ and it is at a distance of D_L = 2.6^(+3.8)_(–0.9) kpc. Given the secure mass ratio measurement, the companion mass is therefore M_2 = 0.2^(+1.2)_(–0.1) M_☉. The xallarap model implies that the primary lens is likely a stellar remnant, such as a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole.

Upper limits on TeV gamma-ray emission from centaurus A, vela X-1, centaurus X-3, and circinus X-1

The active galaxy Centaurus A and the X-ray binary systems Vela X-1, Centaurus X-3, and Circinus X-1 were monitored for VHE gamma-ray emission above 1 TeV with the JANZOS Cerenkov facility during 1988 and 1989. No evidence was found for persistent or episodic emission from any of these objects. Subsequent upper limits on the integral fluxes of 2.2×10 −11 , 2.8×10 −11 , 4.0×10 −11 ,and 4.2×10 −11 cm −1 s −1 , respectively, were obtained for these objects. These limits are consistent with results of observations made by other groups