Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998apj...506..533g&link_type=abstract
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 506, Issue 2, pp. 533-539.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
22
Cosmology: Gravitational Lensing, Stars: Planetary Systems
Scientific paper
A planetary microlensing event is characterized by a short-lived perturbation to the standard microlensing curve. Planetary perturbations typically last from a few hours to a day, have maximum amplitudes, delta_max, of +/-5%-20% of the standard curve, and come in two classes: major and minor image perturbations. There exist a subset of binary-source events that can reproduce the main features of major image perturbations, which are likely to represent more than half of all planetary events, and thus masquerade as planetary events. These events require a binary source with a small flux ratio, ɛ ~ 10^-2 to 10^-4, and a small impact parameter for the fainter source, beta_2 <~ ɛ/delta_max. The detection probability of events of this type is ~beta_2, and can be as high as ~30% this is comparable to planetary detection rates. Thus a sample of planetary-like perturbations could be seriously contaminated by binary-source events, and there exists the possibility that completely meaningless physical parameters would be derived for any given major image perturbation. Here I derive analytic expressions for a binary-source event in the extreme flux-ratio limit and use these to demonstrate the basic degeneracy between binary-source and planet perturbations. I describe how the degeneracy can be broken by dense and accurate sampling of the perturbation, optical/infrared photometry, or spectroscopic measurements.
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