Implications for extra-solar planetary systems from galactic microlensing observations

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Project objective

Research objectives and content While it is clear that extra-solar planets can be detected with galactic microlensing observations where the planetary system acts as gravitational lens, it is difficult to constrain the lens system from the observations due to ambiguities in the fits, uncertainties in the fit parameters, and the fact that the lens mass and the separation of the lens objects can in general be determined only statistically assuming given distributions of the velocity of the lenses and their mass density. The aim of the proposed project is to perform a comprehensive study of these effects to show what information can be extracted from an observed light curve for a binary and especially a planetary lens system. This work is essential for being able to claim the existence of a planetary system from galactic microlensing observations. To obtain a sample of planetary events from which one can draw the distributions of physical parameters, it is necessary to know that the considered events are not faked by completely different configurations. Training content (objective. benefit and expected impact) Since I did my previous work rather isolated in Dortmund, it would be of special interest to join a group working on the same main subject. Moreover, the field of astronomy is not represented in Dortmund, and I rather learned about theoretical physics, so it would be of importance to join an astronomical institute. Links with industry / industrial relevance (22)

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN · GRONINGENCoordinatorNetherlands
• Not availableCity levelGermany

Links

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