How To Find Planets and Black Holes with Microlensing Events (Abstract)

Volume 46 number 2 (2018)

Lukasz Wyrzykowski

Warsaw University Astronomical Observatory, Department of Physics, Al. Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warszawa, Poland; lw@astrouw.edu.pl

Abstract

(Abstract only) As shown by gravitational wave detections, galaxies harbor an unknown population of black holes at high masses. In our Galaxy, dark objects like black holes or planets can be found and studied solely via gravitational microlensing, when a distant source star gets magnified by the space-time curvature caused by the lensing object. In order to measure the mass of the lens, hence to recognize a black hole or a planet, it is necessary to combine highly sampled photometry from the ground with high accuracy astrometric data from Gaia. Well-coordinated observing efforts, as in case of Gaia16aye binary microlensing event, will lead to full characterization and discovery of a population of planets and black holes in the spiral arms of the Milky Way.