Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2002-06-27
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium 211, "Brown Dwarfs", ASP Conference Series
Scientific paper
Microlensing is sensitive to binary, brown dwarf, and planetary companions to normal stars in the Galactic bulge with separations between about 1-10 AU. The accurate, densely-sampled photometry of microlensing events needed to detect planetary companions has been achieved by several follow-up collaborations. Detailed analysis of microlensing events toward the bulge demonstrates that less than 45% of M-dwarfs in the bulge have Jupiter-mass companions between 1 and 5 AU. Detection of binary and brown-dwarf companions using microlensing is considerably easier; however, the interpretation is hampered by their non-perturbative influence on the parent lightcurve. I demonstrate that ~25% of brown-dwarf companions with separations 1-10 AU should be detectable with survey-quality data (~1 day sampling and ~5% photometry). Survey data is more amenable to generic, brute-force analysis methods and less prone to selection biases. An analysis of the ~1500 microlensing events detected by OGLE-III in the next three years should test whether the BD desert exists at separations 1-10 AU from M-dwarfs in the Galactic bulge.
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