ABSTRACT We report the results of the statistical analysis of planetary signals discovered in MOA-II microlensing survey alert system events from 2007 to 2012. We determine the survey sensitivity as ...a function of planet-star mass ratio, q, and projected planet-star separation, s, in Einstein radius units. We find that the mass-ratio function is not a single power law, but has a change in slope at q ∼ 10−4, corresponding to ∼20 M⊕ for the median host-star mass of ∼0.6 . We find significant planetary signals in 23 of the 1474 alert events that are well-characterized by the MOA-II survey data alone. Data from other groups are used only to characterize planetary signals that have been identified in the MOA data alone. The distribution of mass ratios and separations of the planets found in our sample are well fit by a broken power-law model of the form for q > qbr and for q < qbr, where qbr is the mass ratio of the break. We also combine this analysis with the previous analyses of Gould et al. and Cassan et al., bringing the total sample to 30 planets. This combined analysis yields , n = −0.93 0.13, , and for qbr 1.7 × 10−4. The unbroken power-law model is disfavored with a p-value of 0.0022, which corresponds to a Bayes factor of 27 favoring the broken power-law model. These results imply that cold Neptunes are likely to be the most common type of planets beyond the snow line.
Abstract
We report discovery of the lowest mass ratio exoplanet to be found by the microlensing method in the light curve of the event OGLE 2016–BLG–1195. This planet revealed itself as a small ...deviation from a microlensing single lens profile from an examination of the survey data. The duration of the planetary signal is ∼2.5 h. The measured ratio of the planet mass to its host star is q = 4.2 ± 0.7 × 10−5. We further estimate that the lens system is likely to comprise a cold ∼3 Earth mass planet in an ∼2 au wide orbit around a 0.2 Solar mass star at an overall distance of 7.1 kpc.
We present a statistical analysis of the first four seasons from a second-generation microlensing survey for extrasolar planets, consisting of near-continuous time coverage of 8 deg to the 2nd power ...of the Galactic bulge by the Optical Gravitational Lens Experiment (OGLE), Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), and Wise microlensing surveys. During this period, 224 microlensing events were observed by all three groups. Over 12% of the events showed a deviation from single-lens microlensing, and for approx. 1/3 of those the anomaly is likely caused by a planetary companion. For each of the 224 events, we have performed numerical ray-tracing simulations to calculate the detection efficiency of possible companions as a function of companion-to-host mass ratio and separation. Accounting for the detection efficiency, we find that 55 +34 -22%of microlensed stars host a snowline planet. Moreover, we find that Neptune-mass planets are approx.10 times more common than Jupiter-mass planets. The companion-to-host mass-ratio distribution shows a deficit at q approx. 10 (exp -2), separating the distribution into two companion populations, analogous to the stellar-companion and planet populations, seen in radial-velocity surveys around solar-like stars. Our survey, however, which probes mainly lower mass stars, suggests a minimum in the distribution in the super-Jupiter mass range, and a relatively high occurrence of brown-dwarf companions.
The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located in Ooty, India records rapid (∼10 min) variations in the muon intensity during major thunderstorms. Out of a total of 184 thunderstorms recorded during the ...interval of April 2011-December 2014, the one on December 1, 2014 produced a massive potential of 1.3 GV. The electric field measured by four well-separated (up to 6 km) monitors on the ground was used to help estimate some of the properties of this thundercloud, including its altitude and area that were found to be 11.4 km above mean sea level and ≥380 km^{2}, respectively. A charging time of 6 min to reach 1.3 GV implied the delivery of a power of ≥2 GW by this thundercloud that was moving at a speed of ∼60 km h^{-1}. This work possibly provides the first direct evidence for the generation of gigavolt potentials in thunderclouds that could also possibly explain the production of highest-energy (100 MeV) gamma rays in the terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.
The Large Hadron Collider forward (LHCf) experiment is designed to use the LHC to verify the hadronic-interaction models used in cosmic-ray physics. Forward baryon production is one of the crucial ...points to understand the development of cosmic-ray showers. We report the neutron-energy spectra for LHC s=7 TeV proton–proton collisions with the pseudo-rapidity η ranging from 8.81 to 8.99, from 8.99 to 9.22, and from 10.76 to infinity. The measured energy spectra obtained from the two independent calorimeters of Arm1 and Arm2 show the same characteristic feature before unfolding the detector responses. We unfolded the measured spectra by using the multidimensional unfolding method based on Bayesian theory, and the unfolded spectra were compared with current hadronic-interaction models. The QGSJET II-03 model predicts a high neutron production rate at the highest pseudo-rapidity range similar to our results, and the DPMJET 3.04 model describes our results well at the lower pseudo-rapidity ranges. However, no model perfectly explains the experimental results over the entire pseudo-rapidity range. The experimental data indicate a more abundant neutron production rate relative to the photon production than any model predictions studied here.
MOA-2006-BLG-074 was selected as one of the most promising planetary candidates in a retrospective analysis of the MOA collaboration: its asymmetric high-magnification peak can be perfectly explained ...by a source passing across a central caustic deformed by a small planet. However, after a detailed analysis of the residuals, we have realized that a single lens and a source orbiting with a faint companion provides a more satisfactory explanation for all the observed deviations from a Paczynski curve and the only physically acceptable interpretation. Indeed the orbital motion of the source is constrained enough to allow a very good characterization of the binary source from the microlensing light curve. The case of MOA-2006-BLG-074 suggests that the so-called xallarap effect must be taken seriously in any attempts to obtain accurate planetary demographics from microlensing surveys.
We present the result of microlensing event MOA-2016-BLG-290, which received observations from the two-wheel Kepler (K2), Spitzer, as well as ground-based observatories. A joint analysis of data from ...K2 and the ground leads to two degenerate solutions of the lens mass and distance. This degeneracy is effectively broken once the (partial) Spitzer light curve is included. Altogether, the lens is found to be an extremely low-mass star or brown dwarf ( ) located in the Galactic bulge ( kpc). MOA-2016-BLG-290 is the first microlensing event for which we have signals from three well-separated (∼1 au) locations. It demonstrates the power of two-satellite microlensing experiment in reducing the ambiguity of lens properties, as pointed out independently by S. Refsdal and A. Gould several decades ago.
We report on the analysis of a microlensing event, OGLE-2014-BLG-1722, that showed two distinct short-term anomalies. The best-fit model to the observed light curves shows that the two anomalies are ...explained with two planetary mass ratio companions to the primary lens. Although a binary-source model is also able to explain the second anomaly, it is marginally ruled out by 3.1 . The two-planet model indicates that the first anomaly was caused by planet "b" with a mass ratio of and projected separation in units of the Einstein radius, s = 0.753 0.004. The second anomaly reveals planet "c" with a mass ratio of with Δχ2 ∼ 170 compared to the single-planet model. Its separation has two degenerated solutions: the separation of planet c is s2 = 0.84 0.03 and 1.37 0.04 for the close and wide models, respectively. Unfortunately, this event does not show clear finite-source and microlensing parallax effects; thus, we estimated the physical parameters of the lens system from Bayesian analysis. This gives the masses of planets b and c as and , respectively, and they orbit a late-type star with a mass of located at from us. The projected distances between the host and planets are for planet b and and for the close and wide models of planet c. If the two-planet model is true, then this is the third multiple-planet system detected using the microlensing method and the first multiple-planet system detected in low-magnification events, which are dominant in the microlensing survey data. The occurrence rate of multiple cold gas giant systems is estimated using the two such detections and a simple extrapolation of the survey sensitivity of the 6 yr MOA microlensing survey combined with the 4 yr FUN detection efficiency. It is estimated that 6% 2% of stars host two cold giant planets.
Since 1995, more than 500 exoplanets have been detected using different techniques, of which 12 were detected with gravitational microlensing. Most of these are gravitationally bound to their host ...stars. There is some evidence of free-floating planetary-mass objects in young star-forming regions, but these objects are limited to massive objects of 3 to 15 Jupiter masses with large uncertainties in photometric mass estimates and their abundance. Here, we report the discovery of a population of unbound or distant Jupiter-mass objects, which are almost twice (1.8(+1.7)(-0.8)) as common as main-sequence stars, based on two years of gravitational microlensing survey observations towards the Galactic Bulge. These planetary-mass objects have no host stars that can be detected within about ten astronomical units by gravitational microlensing. However, a comparison with constraints from direct imaging suggests that most of these planetary-mass objects are not bound to any host star. An abrupt change in the mass function at about one Jupiter mass favours the idea that their formation process is different from that of stars and brown dwarfs. They may have formed in proto-planetary disks and subsequently scattered into unbound or very distant orbits.
Abstract
GRAPES-3 is a mid-altitude (2200 m) and near-equatorial (11.°4N) air shower array, overlapping in its field of view for cosmic-ray observations with experiments that are located in the ...Northern and Southern Hemispheres. We analyze a sample of 3.7 × 10
9
cosmic-ray events collected by the GRAPES-3 experiment between 2013 January 1 and 2016 December 31 with a median energy of ∼16 TeV for study of small-scale (<60°) angular-scale anisotropies. We observed two structures, labeled A and B, that deviate from the expected isotropic distribution of cosmic rays in a statistically significant manner. Structure A spans 50°–80° in R.A. and from −15° to 30° in decl. The relative excess observed in structure A is at the level of (6.5 ± 1.3) × 10
−4
with a statistical significance of 6.8 standard deviations. Structure B is observed in the R.A. range 110°–140° and at decl. from −10° to 30°. The relative excess observed in this region is at the level of (4.9 ± 1.4) × 10
−4
with a statistical significance of 4.7 standard deviations. These structures are consistent with those reported by Milagro, ARGO-YBJ, and HAWC. These observations could provide a better understanding of the sources of cosmic rays, their propagation, and the magnetic structures in our Galaxy.
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