Due to the nature of the gravitational field, microlensing, in principle, provides an important tool for detecting faint and even dark brown dwarfs. However, the number of identified brown dwarfs is ...limited due to the difficulty of the lens mass measurement that is needed to check the substellar nature of the lensing object. In this work, we report a microlensing brown dwarf discovered from an analysis of the gravitational binary-lens event OGLE-2014-BLG-1112. We identify the brown dwarf nature of the lens companion by measuring the lens mass from the detections of both microlens-parallax and finite-source effects. We find that the companion has a mass of and it is orbiting a solar-type primary star with a mass of . The estimated projected separation between the lens components is 9.63 1.33 au and the distance to the lens is 4.84 0.67 kpc. We discuss the usefulness of space-based microlensing observations for detecting brown dwarfs through the channel of binary-lens events.
ABSTRACT We report the discovery of an extrasolar planet detected from the combined data of a microlensing event OGLE-2015-BLG-0051/KMT-2015-BLG-0048 acquired by two microlensing surveys. Despite the ...fact that the short planetary signal occurred in the very early Bulge season during which the lensing event could be seen for just about an hour, the signal was continuously and densely covered. From the Bayesian analysis using models of the mass function, and matter and velocity distributions, combined with information on the angular Einstein radius, it is found that the host of the planet is located in the Galactic bulge. The planet has a mass and it is orbiting a low-mass M-dwarf host with a projected separation . The discovery of the planet demonstrates the capability of the current high-cadence microlensing lensing surveys in detecting and characterizing planets.
ABSTRACT In this paper, we demonstrate the severity of the degeneracy between the microlens-parallax and lens-orbital effects by presenting the analysis of the gravitational binary-lens event ...OGLE-2015-BLG-0768. Despite the obvious deviation from the model based on the linear observer motion and the static binary, it is found that the residual can be almost equally well explained by either the parallactic motion of the Earth or the rotation of the binary-lens axis, resulting in the severe degeneracy between the two effects. We show that the degeneracy can be readily resolved with the additional data provided by space-based microlens parallax observations. By enabling us to distinguish between the two higher-order effects, space-based microlens parallax observations will not only make it possible to accurately determine the physical lens parameters but also to further constrain the orbital parameters of binary lenses.
ABSTRACT We report the first mass and distance measurements of a caustic-crossing binary system OGLE-2014-BLG-1050 L using the space-based microlens parallax method. Spitzer captured the second ...caustic crossing of the event, which occurred ∼10 days before that seen from Earth. Due to the coincidence that the source-lens relative motion was almost parallel to the direction of the binary-lens axis, the fourfold degeneracy, which was known before only to occur in single-lens events, persists in this case, leading to either a lower-mass (0.2 and 0.07 ) binary at ∼1.1 kpc or a higher-mass (0.9 and 0.35 ) binary at ∼3.5 kpc. However, the latter solution is strongly preferred for reasons including blending and lensing probability. OGLE-2014-BLG-1050 L demonstrates the power of microlens parallax in probing stellar and substellar binaries.
We present new ground-based, multi-colour, broad-band photometric measurements of the physical parameters, transmission and emission spectra of the transiting extrasolar planet WASP-19b. The ...measurements are based on observations of eight transits and four occultations through a Gunn i filter using the 1.54-m Danish Telescope, 14 transits through an R
c
filter at the Perth Exoplanet Survey Telescope (PEST) observatory and one transit observed simultaneously through four optical (Sloan g
′, r
′, i
′, z
′) and three near-infrared (J, H, K) filters, using the Gamma Ray Burst Optical and Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) instrument on the MPG/ESO 2.2-m telescope. The GROND optical light curves have a point-to-point scatter around the best-fitting model between 0.52 and 0.65 mmag rms. We use these new data to measure refined physical parameters for the system. We find the planet to be more bloated (R
b = 1.410 ± 0.017R
Jup; M
b = 1.139 ± 0.030M
Jup) and the system to be twice as old as initially thought. We also used published and archived data sets to study the transit timings, which do not depart from a linear ephemeris. We detected an anomaly in the GROND transit light curve which is compatible with a spot on the photosphere of the parent star. The starspot position, size, spot contrast and temperature were established. Using our new and published measurements, we assembled the planet's transmission spectrum over the 370-2350 nm wavelength range and its emission spectrum over the 750-8000 nm range. By comparing these data to theoretical models we investigated the theoretically predicted variation of the apparent radius of WASP-19b as a function of wavelength and studied the composition and thermal structure of its atmosphere. We conclude that: (i) there is no evidence for strong optical absorbers at low pressure, supporting the common idea that the planet's atmosphere lacks a dayside inversion; (ii) the temperature of the planet is not homogenized, because the high warming of its dayside causes the planet to be more efficient in re-radiating than redistributing energy to the night side; (iii) the planet seems to be outside of any current classification scheme.
In the neighborhood of Sgr A*, several stars (S2, S12, S14, S1, S8, and S13) enjoy an accurate determination of their orbital parameters. General relativity predicts that the central black hole acts ...as a gravitational lens on these stars, generating a secondary image and two infinite series of relativistic images. For each of these six stars, we calculate the light curves for the secondary and the first two relativistic images, in the Schwarzschild black hole hypothesis, throughout their orbital periods. The curves are peaked around the periapse epoch, but two subpeaks may arise in nearly edge-on orbits, when the source is behind or in front of Sgr A*. We show that for most of these stars the secondary image should be observable during its brightness peak. In particular, S14 is the best candidate, since its secondary image reaches K = 23.3 with an angular separation of 0.125 mas from the apparent horizon of the central black hole. The detection of such images by future instruments could represent the first observation of gravitational lensing beyond the weak-field approximation.
We consider a two-component regular cosmology bouncing from contraction to expansion, where, in order to include both scalar fields and perfect fluids as particular cases, the dominant component is ...allowed to have an intrinsic isocurvature mode. We show that the spectrum of the growing mode of the Bardeen potential in the Pre-Bounce is never transferred to the dominant mode of the Post-Bounce. The latter acquires at most a dominant isocurvature component, depending on the relative properties of the two fluids. Our results imply that several claims in the literature need substantial revision.
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We present the results of 14 nights of I-band photometric monitoring of the nearby brown dwarf binary, ϵ Indi Ba and Bb. Observations were acquired over 2 months, with a total of close to ...42 h of coverage at a typically high cadence of 1.4 min. At a separation of just 0.7 arcsec, we do not resolve the individual components, and so effectively treat the binary as if it were a single object. However, ϵ Indi Ba (spectral type T1) is the brightest known T-type brown dwarf, and is expected to dominate the photometric signal. We typically find no strong variability associated with the target during each individual night of observing, but see significant changes in mean brightness – by as much as 0.10 mag – over the 2 months of the campaign. This strong variation is apparent on a time-scale of at least 2 d. We detect no clear periodic signature, which suggests that we may be observing the T1 brown dwarf almost pole-on, and the days-long variability in mean brightness is caused by changes in the large-scale structure of the cloud coverage. Dynamic clouds will very likely produce lightning, and complementary high-cadence V-band and H α images were acquired to search for the emission signatures associated with stochastic ‘strikes’. We report no positive detections for the target in either of these passbands.
String theory introduces a new fundamental scale (the string length) that is expected to regularize the singularities of classical general relativity. In a cosmological context, the Big Bang is no ...longer regarded as the beginning of time, but just a transition between a Pre-Big Bang collapse phase and the current expansion. We will review old and recent attempts to build consistent bouncing cosmologies inspired to string theories, discussing their solved and unsolved problems, focussing on the observables that may distinguish them from standard inflationary scenarios.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
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