arXiv subjects

R. W. Pogge

Publications and source records attributed to R. W. Pogge.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

MOA-2013-BLG-220Lb: Massive Planetary Companion to Galactic-Disk Host

We report the discovery of MOA-2013-BLG-220Lb, which has a super-Jupiter mass ratio $q=3.01\pm 0.02\times 10^{-3}$ relative to its host. The proper motion, $μ=12.5\pm 1\, {\rm mas}\,{\rm yr}^{-1}$, is one of the highest for microlensing planets yet discovered, implying that it will be possible to separately resolve the host within $\sim 7$ years. Two separate lines of evidence imply that the planet and host are in the Galactic disk. The planet could have been detected and characterized purely with follow-up data, which has important implications for microlensing surveys, both current and into the LSST era.

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arXiv2014

OGLE-2012-BLG-0455/MOA-2012-BLG-206: Microlensing event with ambiguity in planetary interpretations caused by incomplete coverage of planetary signal

Characterizing a microlensing planet is done from modeling an observed lensing light curve. In this process, it is often confronted that solutions of different lensing parameters result in similar light curves, causing difficulties in uniquely interpreting the lens system, and thus understanding the causes of different types of degeneracy is important. In this work, we show that incomplete coverage of a planetary perturbation can result in degenerate solutions even for events where the planetary signal is detected with a high level of statistical significance. We demonstrate the degeneracy for an actually observed event OGLE-2012-BLG-0455/MOA-2012-BLG-206. The peak of this high-magnification event $(A_{\rm max}\sim400)$ exhibits very strong deviation from a point-lens model with $Δχ^{2}\gtrsim4000$ for data sets with a total number of measurement 6963. From detailed modeling of the light curve, we find that the deviation can be explained by four distinct solutions, i.e., two very different sets of solutions, each with a two-fold degeneracy. While the two-fold (so-called "close/wide") degeneracy is well-understood, the degeneracy between the radically different solutions is not previously known. The model light curves of this degeneracy differ substantially in the parts that were not covered by observation, indicating that the degeneracy is caused by the incomplete coverage of the perturbation. It is expected that the frequency of the degeneracy introduced in this work will be greatly reduced with the improvement of the current lensing survey and follow-up experiments and the advent of new surveys.

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arXiv2014

Candidate Gravitational Microlensing Events for Future Direct Lens Imaging

The mass of the lenses giving rise to Galactic microlensing events can be constrained by measuring the relative lens-source proper motion and lens flux. The flux of the lens can be separated from that of the source, companions to the source, and unrelated nearby stars with high-resolution images taken when the lens and source are spatially resolved. For typical ground-based adaptive optics (AO) or space-based observations, this requires either inordinately long time baselines or high relative proper motions. We provide a list of microlensing events toward the Galactic Bulge with high relative lens-source proper motion that are therefore good candidates for constraining the lens mass with future high-resolution imaging. We investigate all events from 2004 -- 2013 that display detectable finite-source effects, a feature that allows us to measure the proper motion. In total, we present 20 events with mu >~ 8 mas/yr. Of these, 14 were culled from previous analyses while 6 are new, including OGLE-2004-BLG-368, MOA-2005-BLG-36, OGLE-2012-BLG-0211, OGLE-2012-BLG-0456, MOA-2012-BLG-532, and MOA-2013-BLG-029. In <~12 years the lens and source of each event will be sufficiently separated for ground-based telescopes with AO systems or space telescopes to resolve each component and further characterize the lens system. Furthermore, for the most recent events, comparison of the lens flux estimates from images taken immediately to those estimated from images taken when the lens and source are resolved can be used to empirically check the robustness of the single-epoch method currently being used to estimate lens masses for many events.

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arXiv2013

A Sub-Earth-Mass Moon Orbiting a Gas Giant Primary or a High Velocity Planetary System in the Galactic Bulge

We present the first microlensing candidate for a free-floating exoplanet-exomoon system, MOA-2011-BLG-262, with a primary lens mass of M_host ~ 4 Jupiter masses hosting a sub-Earth mass moon. The data are well fit by this exomoon model, but an alternate star+planet model fits the data almost as well. Nevertheless, these results indicate the potential of microlensing to detect exomoons, albeit ones that are different from the giant planet moons in our solar system. The argument for an exomoon hinges on the system being relatively close to the Sun. The data constrain the product M pi_rel, where M is the lens system mass and pi_rel is the lens-source relative parallax. If the lens system is nearby (large pi_rel), then M is small (a few Jupiter masses) and the companion is a sub-Earth-mass exomoon. The best-fit solution has a large lens-source relative proper motion, mu_rel = 19.6 +- 1.6 mas/yr, which would rule out a distant lens system unless the source star has an unusually high proper motion. However, data from the OGLE collaboration nearly rule out a high source proper motion, so the exoplanet+exomoon model is the favored interpretation for the best fit model. However, the alternate solution has a lower proper motion, which is compatible with a distant (so stellar) host. A Bayesian analysis does not favor the exoplanet+exomoon interpretation, so Occam's razor favors a lens system in the bulge with host and companion masses of M_host = 0.12 (+0.19 -0.06) M_solar and m_comp = 18 (+28 -100 M_earth, at a projected separation of a_perp ~ 0.84 AU. The existence of this degeneracy is an unlucky accident, so current microlensing experiments are in principle sensitive to exomoons. In some circumstances, it will be possible to definitively establish the low mass of such lens systems through the microlensing parallax effect. Future experiments will be sensitive to less extreme exomoons.

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arXiv2013

A Super-Jupiter orbiting a late-type star: A refined analysis of microlensing event OGLE-2012-BLG-0406

We present a detailed analysis of survey and follow-up observations of microlensing event OGLE-2012-BLG-0406 based on data obtained from 10 different observatories. Intensive coverage of the lightcurve, especially the perturbation part, allowed us to accurately measure the parallax effect and lens orbital motion. Combining our measurement of the lens parallax with the angular Einstein radius determined from finite-source effects, we estimate the physical parameters of the lens system. We find that the event was caused by a $2.73\pm 0.43\ M_{\rm J}$ planet orbiting a $0.44\pm 0.07\ M_{\odot}$ early M-type star. The distance to the lens is $4.97\pm 0.29$\ kpc and the projected separation between the host star and its planet at the time of the event is $3.45\pm 0.26$ AU. We find that the additional coverage provided by follow-up observations, especially during the planetary perturbation, leads to a more accurate determination of the physical parameters of the lens.

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arXiv2013

The Size of the Narrow-Line Emitting Region in the Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 5548 from Emission-Line Variability

The narrow [O III] 4959, 5007 emission-line fluxes in the spectrum of the well-studied Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 are shown to vary with time. From this we show that the narrow line-emitting region has a radius of only 1-3 pc and is denser (n ~ 10^5 cm^{-3}) than previously supposed. The [O III] line width is consistent with virial motions at this radius given previous determinations of the black hole mass.Since the [O III] emission-line flux is usually assumed to be constant and is therefore used to calibrate spectroscopic monitoring data, the variability has ramifications for the long-term secular variations of continuum and emission-line fluxes, though it has no effect on shorter-term reverberation studies. We present corrected optical continuum and broad Hbeta emission-line light curves for the period 1988 to 2008.

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arXiv2013

MOA-2010-BLG-311: A planetary candidate below the threshold of reliable detection

We analyze MOA-2010-BLG-311, a high magnification (A_max>600) microlensing event with complete data coverage over the peak, making it very sensitive to planetary signals. We fit this event with both a point lens and a 2-body lens model and find that the 2-body lens model is a better fit but with only Delta chi^2~80. The preferred mass ratio between the lens star and its companion is $q=10^(-3.7+/-0.1), placing the candidate companion in the planetary regime. Despite the formal significance of the planet, we show that because of systematics in the data the evidence for a planetary companion to the lens is too tenuous to claim a secure detection. When combined with analyses of other high-magnification events, this event helps empirically define the threshold for reliable planet detection in high-magnification events, which remains an open question.

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arXiv2013

MOA-2010-BLG-328Lb: a sub-Neptune orbiting very late M dwarf ?

We analyze the planetary microlensing event MOA-2010-BLG-328. The best fit yields host and planetary masses of Mh = 0.11+/-0.01 M_{sun} and Mp = 9.2+/-2.2M_Earth, corresponding to a very late M dwarf and sub-Neptune-mass planet, respectively. The system lies at DL = 0.81 +/- 0.10 kpc with projected separation r = 0.92 +/- 0.16 AU. Because of the host's a-priori-unlikely close distance, as well as the unusual nature of the system, we consider the possibility that the microlens parallax signal, which determines the host mass and distance, is actually due to xallarap (source orbital motion) that is being misinterpreted as parallax. We show a result that favors the parallax solution, even given its close host distance. We show that future high-resolution astrometric measurements could decisively resolve the remaining ambiguity of these solutions.

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arXiv2013

Interpretation of a Short-Term Anomaly in the Gravitational Microlensing Event MOA-2012-BLG-486

A planetary microlensing signal is generally characterized by a short-term perturbation to the standard single lensing light curve. A subset of binary-source events can produce perturbations that mimic planetary signals, thereby introducing an ambiguity between the planetary and binary-source interpretations. In this paper, we present analysis of the microlensing event MOA-2012-BLG-486, for which the light curve exhibits a short-lived perturbation. Routine modeling not considering data taken in different passbands yields a best-fit planetary model that is slightly preferred over the best-fit binary-source model. However, when allowed for a change in the color during the perturbation, we find that the binary-source model yields a significantly better fit and thus the degeneracy is clearly resolved. This event not only signifies the importance of considering various interpretations of short-term anomalies, but also demonstrates the importance of multi-band data for checking the possibility of false-positive planetary signals.

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arXiv2013

Stellar Velocity Dispersion Measurements in High-Luminosity Quasar Hosts and Implications for the AGN Black Hole Mass Scale

We present new stellar velocity dispersion measurements for four luminous quasars with the NIFS instrument and the ALTAIR laser guide star adaptive optics system on the Gemini North 8-m telescope. Stellar velocity dispersion measurements and measurements of the supermassive black hole masses in luminous quasars are necessary to investigate the coevolution of black holes and galaxies, trace the details of accretion, and probe the nature of feedback. We find that higher-luminosity quasars with higher-mass black holes are not offset with respect to the MBH-sigma relation exhibited by lower-luminosity AGNs with lower-mass black holes, nor do we see correlations with galaxy morphology. As part of this analysis, we have recalculated the virial products for the entire sample of reverberation-mapped AGNs and used these data to redetermine the mean virial factor hfi that places the reverberation data on the quiescent M_BH-sigma relation. With our updated measurements and new additions to the AGN sample, we obtain = 4.31 +/- 1.05, which is slightly lower than, but consistent with, most previous determinations.

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arXiv2013

Microlensing Discovery of a Tight, Low Mass-ratio Planetary-mass Object around an Old, Field Brown Dwarf

Observations of accretion disks around young brown dwarfs have led to the speculation that they may form planetary systems similar to normal stars. While there have been several detections of planetary-mass objects around brown dwarfs (2MASS 1207-3932 and 2MASS 0441-2301), these companions have relatively large mass ratios and projected separations, suggesting that they formed in a manner analogous to stellar binaries. We present the discovery of a planetary-mass object orbiting a field brown dwarf via gravitational microlensing, OGLE-2012-BLG-0358Lb. The system is a low secondary/primary mass ratio (0.080 +- 0.001), relatively tightly-separated (~0.87 AU) binary composed of a planetary-mass object with 1.9 +- 0.2 Jupiter masses orbiting a brown dwarf with a mass 0.022 M_Sun. The relatively small mass ratio and separation suggest that the companion may have formed in a protoplanetary disk around the brown dwarf host, in a manner analogous to planets.

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arXiv2013

Probing the low-redshift star formation rate as a function of metallicity through the local environments of type II supernovae

Type II SNe can trace star formation to probe its global metallicity distribution at low-redshift. We present oxygen and iron abundance distributions of SN II progenitor regions that avoid many previous sources of bias. Because Fe (rather than O) abundance drives the late stage evolution of the massive stars that are the progenitors of CCSNe, and because Fe enrichment lags O enrichment, we find a general conversion from O abundance to Fe abundance. The distributions we present here are the best yet standard of comparison for evaluating how rare classes of SNe depend on progenitor metallicity. We measure the gas-phase O abundance of a representative subsample of the hosts of SNe II from the first-year PTF SN search, using a combination of SDSS spectra near the SN location (9) and new long slit spectroscopy (25). The median metallicity of these 34 hosts is 12+log(O/H) = 8.65, with a median error of 0.09. The median host galaxy stellar mass from fits to SDSS photometry is 10^9.9 solar masses. They do not show a systematic offset in metallicity or mass from a redshift-matched sample of the MPA/JHU value-added catalog. In contrast to previous SN host metallicity studies, this sample is drawn from a single, areal survey. SNe in the lowest-mass galaxies are not systematically excluded. The metallicity distribution we find is statistically indistinguishable from the metallicity distribution of SN II hosts found by targeted surveys and by samples from multiple surveys with different selection functions. Using the relationship between Fe and O abundances found for Milky Way disk, bulge, and halo stars, we translate our O abundance distribution of SN II environments into Fe abundance estimates. We find that though this sample spans only 0.65 dex in O abundance, the gap between the Fe and O abundance is 50% wider at the low-metallicity end of our sample than at the high-metallicity end. (abridged)

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arXiv2013

Gravitational Binary-lens Events with Prominent Effects of Lens Orbital Motion

Gravitational microlensing events produced by lenses composed of binary masses are important because they provide a major channel to determine physical parameters of lenses. In this work, we analyze the light curves of two binary-lens events OGLE-2006-BLG-277 and OGLE-2012-BLG-0031 for which the light curves exhibit strong deviations from standard models. From modeling considering various second-order effects, we find that the deviations are mostly explained by the effect of the lens orbital motion. We also find that lens parallax effects can mimic orbital effects to some extent. This implies that modeling light curves of binary-lens events not considering orbital effects can result in lens parallaxes that are substantially different from actual values and thus wrong determinations of physical lens parameters. This demonstrates the importance of routine consideration of orbital effects in interpreting light curves of binary-lens events. It is found that the lens of OGLE-2006-BLG-277 is a binary composed of a low-mass star and a brown dwarf companion.

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arXiv2013

Microlensing Discovery of a Population of Very Tight, Very Low-mass Binary Brown Dwarfs

Although many models have been proposed, the physical mechanisms responsible for the formation of low-mass brown dwarfs are poorly understood. The multiplicity properties and minimum mass of the brown-dwarf mass function provide critical empirical diagnostics of these mechanisms. We present the discovery via gravitational microlensing of two very low-mass, very tight binary systems. These binaries have directly and precisely measured total system masses of 0.025 Msun and 0.034 Msun, and projected separations of 0.31 AU and 0.19 AU, making them the lowest-mass and tightest field brown-dwarf binaries known. The discovery of a population of such binaries indicates that brown dwarf binaries can robustly form at least down to masses of ~0.02 Msun. Future microlensing surveys will measure a mass-selected sample of brown-dwarf binary systems, which can then be directly compared to similar samples of stellar binaries.

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arXiv2013

No Stripped Hydrogen in the Nebular Spectra of Nearby Type Ia Supernova 2011fe

A generic prediction of the single-degenerate model for Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is that a significant amount of material will be stripped from the donor star (~0.5 Msun for a giant donor and ~0.15 Msun for a main sequence donor) by the supernova ejecta. This material, excited by gamma-rays from radioactive decay, would then produce relatively narrow (1000 km s-1) emission features observable once the supernova enters the nebular phase. Such emission has never been detected, which already provides strong constraints on Type Ia progenitor models. In this Letter we report the deepest limit yet on the presence of H-alpha emission originating from the stripped hydrogen in the nebular spectrum of a Type Ia supernova obtained using a high signal-to-noise spectrum of the nearby normal SN Ia 2011fe 274 days after B-band maximum light with the Large Binocular Telescope's Multi-Object Double Spectrograph. We put a conservative upper limit on the H-alpha flux of 3.14 x 10^-17 erg s-1 cm-2, which corresponds to a luminosity of 1.57 x 10^35 erg s-1. By scaling models from the literature, our flux limit translates into an upper limit of 0.001 Msun of stripped material. This is an order of magnitude stronger than previous limits. SN 2011fe was a typical Type Ia supernova, special only in its proximity, and we argue that lack of hydrogen emission in its nebular spectrum adds yet another strong constraint on the single degenerate class of models for SNe Ia.

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arXiv2012

MOA-2010-BLG-073L: An M-Dwarf with a Substellar Companion at the Planet/Brown Dwarf Boundary

We present an analysis of the anomalous microlensing event, MOA-2010-BLG-073, announced by the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics survey on 2010-03-18. This event was remarkable because the source was previously known to be photometrically variable. Analyzing the pre-event source lightcurve, we demonstrate that it is an irregular variable over time scales >200d. Its dereddened color, $(V-I)_{S,0}$, is 1.221$\pm$0.051mag and from our lens model we derive a source radius of 14.7$\pm$1.3 $R_{\odot}$, suggesting that it is a red giant star. We initially explored a number of purely microlensing models for the event but found a residual gradient in the data taken prior to and after the event. This is likely to be due to the variability of the source rather than part of the lensing event, so we incorporated a slope parameter in our model in order to derive the true parameters of the lensing system. We find that the lensing system has a mass ratio of q=0.0654$\pm$0.0006. The Einstein crossing time of the event, $T_{\rm{E}}=44.3$\pm$0.1d, was sufficiently long that the lightcurve exhibited parallax effects. In addition, the source trajectory relative to the large caustic structure allowed the orbital motion of the lens system to be detected. Combining the parallax with the Einstein radius, we were able to derive the distance to the lens, $D_L$=2.8$\pm$0.4kpc, and the masses of the lensing objects. The primary of the lens is an M-dwarf with $M_{L,p}$=0.16$\pm0.03M_{\odot}$ while the companion has $M_{L,s}$=11.0$\pm2.0M_{\rm{J}}$ putting it in the boundary zone between planets and brown dwarfs.

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arXiv2012

The Structure of the Broad Line Region in AGN: I. Reconstructed Velocity-Delay Maps

We present velocity-resolved reverberation results for five active galactic nuclei. We recovered velocity-delay maps using the maximum-entropy method for four objects: Mrk 335, Mrk 1501, 3C120, and PG2130+099. For the fifth, Mrk 6, we were only able to measure mean time delays in different velocity bins of the Hbeta emission line. The four velocity-delay maps show unique dynamical signatures for each object. For 3C120, the Balmer lines show kinematic signatures consistent with both an inclined disk and infalling gas, but the HeII 4686 emission line is suggestive only of inflow. The Balmer lines in Mrk 335, Mrk 1501, and PG 2130+099 show signs of infalling gas, but the HeII emission in Mrk 335 is consistent with an inclined disk. We also see tentative evidence of combined virial motion and infalling gas from the velocity-binned analysis of Mrk 6. The maps for 3C120 and Mrk 335 are two of the most clearly defined velocity-delay maps to date. These maps constitute a large increase in the number of objects for which we have resolved velocity-delay maps and provide evidence supporting the reliability of reverberation-based black hole mass measurements.

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arXiv2012

The second multiple-planet system discovered by microlensing: OGLE-2012-BLG-0026Lb, c, a pair of jovian planets beyond the snow line

We report the discovery of a planetary system from observation of the high-magnification microlensing event OGLE-2012-BLG-0026. The lensing light curve exhibits a complex central perturbation with multiple features. We find that the perturbation was produced by two planets located near the Einstein ring of the planet host star. We identify 4 possible solutions resulting from the well-known close/wide degeneracy. By measuring both the lens parallax and the Einstein radius, we estimate the physical parameters of the planetary system. According to the best-fit model, the two planet masses are ~0.11 M_Jupiter and 0.68 M_Jupiter and they are orbiting a G-type main sequence star with a mass ~0.82 M_Sun. The projected separations of the individual planets are beyond the snow line in all four solutions, being ~3.8 AU and 4.6 AU in the best-fit solution. The deprojected separations are both individually larger and possibly reversed in order. This is the second multi-planet system with both planets beyond the snow line discovered by microlensing. This is the only such a system (other than the Solar System) with measured planet masses without sin(i) degeneracy. The planetary system is located at a distance 4.1 kpc from the Earth toward the Galactic center. It is very likely that extra light from stars other than the lensed star comes from the lens itself. If this is correct, it will be possible to obtain detailed information about the planet-host star from follow-up observation.

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