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arXiv · astro-ph/0311420

Gravitational Microlensing: A Tool for Detecting and Characterizing Free-Floating Planets

Cheongho Han·Sun-Ju Chung·Doeon Kim·Byeong-Gon Park·Yoon-Hyun Ryu·Sangjun Kang·Dong Wook Lee
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Abstract

Various methods have been proposed to search for extrasolar planets. Compared to the other methods, microlensing has unique applicabilities to the detections of Earth-mass and free-floating planets. However, the microlensing method is seriously flawed by the fact that the masses of the detected planets cannot be uniquely determined. Recently, Gould, Gaudi, & Han introduced an observational setup that enables one to resolve the mass degeneracy of the Earth-mass planets. The setup requires a modest adjustment to the orbit of an already proposed Microlensing planet-finder satellite combined with ground-based observations. In this paper, we show that a similar observational setup can also be used for the mass determinations of free-floating planets with masses ranging from ~0.1 M_J to several Jupiter masses. If the proposed observational setup is realized, the future lensing surveys will play important roles in the studies of Earth-mass and free-floating planets, which are the populations of planets that have not been previously probed.

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Cheongho Han, Sun-Ju Chung, Doeon Kim, Byeong-Gon Park, Yoon-Hyun Ryu, Sangjun Kang, Dong Wook Lee. 2003-11-18. Gravitational Microlensing: A Tool for Detecting and Characterizing Free-Floating Planets. https://doi.org/10.1086/381429

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