Browsing by Author "Beaulieu J-P"

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    Adaptive Optics Imaging Can Break the Central Caustic Cusp Approach Degeneracy in High-magnification Microlensing Events
    (IOP Publishing on behalf of the American Astronomical Society, 2022-11-01) Terry SK; Bennett DP; Bhattacharya A; Koshimoto N; Beaulieu J-P; Blackman JW; Bond IA; Cole AA; Lu JR; Marquette JB; Ranc C; Rektsini N; Vandorou A
    We report new results for the gravitational microlensing target OGLE-2011-BLG-0950 from adaptive optics images using the Keck Observatory. The original analysis by Choi et al. and reanalysis by Suzuki et al. report degenerate solutions between planetary and stellar binary lens systems. This particular case is the most important type of degeneracy for exoplanet demographics because the distinction between a planetary mass or stellar binary companion has direct consequences for microlensing exoplanet statistics. The 8 and 10 yr baselines allow us to directly measure a relative proper motion of 4.20 ± 0.21 mas yr−1, confirming the detection of the lens star system and ruling out the planetary companion models that predict a ∼4× smaller relative proper motion. The Keck data also rule out the wide stellar binary solution unless one of the components is a stellar remnant. The combination of the lens brightness and close stellar binary light-curve parameters yields primary and secondary star masses of M A = 1.12 − 0.09 + 0.11 and M B = 0.47 − 0.10 + 0.13 M ☉ at a distance of D L = 6.70 − 0.30 + 0.55 kpc and a projected separation of 0.39 − 0.04 + 0.05 au. Assuming that the predicted proper motions are measurably different, the high-resolution imaging method described here can be used to disentangle this degeneracy for events observed by the Roman exoplanet microlensing survey using Roman images taken near the beginning or end of the survey.
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    An Isolated Stellar-mass Black Hole Detected through Astrometric Microlensing
    (IOP Publishing on behalf of the American Astronomical Society, 2022-07-06) Sahu KC; Anderson J; Casertano S; Bond HE; Udalski A; Dominik M; Calamida A; Bellini A; Brown TM; Rejkuba M; Bajaj V; Kains N; Ferguson HC; Fryer CL; Yock P; Mróz P; Kozłowski S; Pietrukowicz P; Poleski R; Skowron J; Soszyński I; Szymański MK; Ulaczyk K; Wyrzykowski Ł; Barry RK; Bennett DP; Bond IA; Hirao Y; Silva SI; Kondo I; Koshimoto N; Ranc C; Rattenbury NJ; Sumi T; Suzuki D; Tristram PJ; Vandorou A; Beaulieu J-P; Marquette J-B; Cole A; Fouqué P; Hill K; Dieters S; Coutures C; Dominis-Prester D; Bennett C; Bachelet E; Menzies J; Albrow M; Pollard K; Gould A; Yee JC; Allen W; Almeida LA; Christie G; Drummond J; Gal-Yam A; Gorbikov E; Jablonski F; Lee C-U; Maoz D; Manulis I; McCormick J; Natusch T; Pogge RW; Shvartzvald Y; Jørgensen UG; Alsubai KA; Andersen MI; Bozza V; Novati SC; Burgdorf M; Hinse TC; Hundertmark M; Husser T-O; Kerins E; Longa-Peña P; Mancini L; Penny M; Rahvar S; Ricci D; Sajadian S; Skottfelt J; Snodgrass C; Southworth J; Tregloan-Reed J; Wambsganss J; Wertz O; Tsapras Y; Street RA; Bramich DM; Horne K; Steele IA
    We report the first unambiguous detection and mass measurement of an isolated stellar-mass black hole (BH). We used the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to carry out precise astrometry of the source star of the long-duration (t E ≃ 270 days), high-magnification microlensing event MOA-2011-BLG-191/OGLE-2011-BLG-0462 (hereafter designated as MOA-11-191/OGLE-11-462), in the direction of the Galactic bulge. HST imaging, conducted at eight epochs over an interval of 6 yr, reveals a clear relativistic astrometric deflection of the background star's apparent position. Ground-based photometry of MOA-11-191/OGLE-11-462 shows a parallactic signature of the effect of Earth's motion on the microlensing light curve. Combining the HST astrometry with the ground-based light curve and the derived parallax, we obtain a lens mass of 7.1 ± 1.3 M ⊙ and a distance of 1.58 ± 0.18 kpc. We show that the lens emits no detectable light, which, along with having a mass higher than is possible for a white dwarf or neutron star, confirms its BH nature. Our analysis also provides an absolute proper motion for the BH. The proper motion is offset from the mean motion of Galactic disk stars at similar distances by an amount corresponding to a transverse space velocity of �1/445 km s-1, suggesting that the BH received a "natal kick"from its supernova explosion. Previous mass determinations for stellar-mass BHs have come from radial velocity measurements of Galactic X-ray binaries and from gravitational radiation emitted by merging BHs in binary systems in external galaxies. Our mass measurement is the first for an isolated stellar-mass BH using any technique.
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    Unveiling MOA-2007-BLG-192: An M Dwarf Hosting a Likely Super-Earth
    (American Astronomical Society, 2024-07-15) Terry SK; Beaulieu J-P; Bennett DP; Hamdorf E; Bhattacharya A; Chaudhry V; Cole AA; Koshimoto N; Anderson J; Bachelet E; Blackman JW; Bond IA; Lu JR; Marquette JB; Ranc C; Rektsini NE; Sahu K; Vandorou A
    We present an analysis of high-angular-resolution images of the microlensing target MOA-2007-BLG-192 using Keck adaptive optics and the Hubble Space Telescope. The planetary host star is robustly detected as it separates from the background source star in nearly all of the Keck and Hubble data. The amplitude and direction of the lens-source separation allows us to break a degeneracy related to the microlensing parallax and source radius crossing time. Thus, we are able to reduce the number of possible binary-lens solutions by a factor of ∼2, demonstrating the power of high-angular-resolution follow-up imaging for events with sparse light-curve coverage. Following Bennett et al., we apply constraints from the high-resolution imaging on the light-curve modeling to find host star and planet masses of M host = 0.28 ± 0.04 M ☉ and m p = 12.49 − 8.03 + 65.47 M ⊕ at a distance from Earth of D L = 2.16 ± 0.30 kpc. This work illustrates the necessity for the Nancy Grace Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey to use its own high-resolution imaging to inform light-curve modeling for microlensing planets that the mission discovers.