Engineering topics

M. James Jee

Publications and source records attributed to M. James Jee.

3 records

NASA NTRS2020

Candidate Brown-dwarf Microlensing Events with Very Short Timescales and Small Angular Einstein Radii

Short-timescale microlensing events are likely to be produced by substellar brown dwarfs (BDs), but it is difficult to securely identify BD lenses based on only event timescales because short-timescale events can also be produced by stellar lenses with high relative lens-source proper motions. In this paper, we report three strong candidate BD-lens events found from the search for lensing events not only with short timescales (t(E) ≲ 6 days) but also with very small angular Einstein radii (θ(E) ≲ 0.05 mas) among the events that have been found in the 2016–2019 observing seasons. These events include MOA-2017-BLG-147, MOA-2017-BLG-241, and MOA-2019-BLG-256, in which the first two events are produced by single lenses and the last event is produced by a binary lens. From the Monte Carlo simulations of Galactic events conducted with the combined t(E) and θ(E) constraint, it is estimated that the lens masses of the individual events are 0.051 (sup +0.100, sub -0.027) M(ʘ), 0.044 (sup +0.090, sub -0.023) M(ʘ), and 0.046 (sup +0.067, sub -0.023) M(ʘ)/0.038 (sup +0.056, sub -0.019) M(ʘ) and the probability of the lens mass smaller than the lower limit of stars is ~80% for all events. We point out that routine lens mass measurements of short-timescale lensing events require survey-mode space-based observations.

Cheongho Han↗

NASA NTRS2020

OGLE-2018-BLG-1700L: Microlensing Planet in Binary Stellar System

We report a planet in a binary that was discovered from the analysis of the microlensing event OGLE-2018-BLG-1700. We identify the triple nature of the lens from the fact that the anomaly pattern can be decomposed into two parts produced by two binary-lens events, in which one binary pair has a mass ratio of ∼0.01 between the lens components and the other pair has a mass ratio of ∼0.3. We find two sets of degenerate solutions, in which one solution has a projected separation between the primary and its stellar companion less than the angular Einstein radius θ(E) (close solution), while the other solution has a separation greater than θ(E) (wide solution). From the Bayesian analysis with the constraints of the event timescale and angular Einstein radius, we find that the planet has a mass of 4.4(sup +3.0, sub -2.0) M(J) and the stellar binary components have masses of 0.42 (sup +0.29, sub -0.19) M(ʘ) and 0.12 (sup +0.08, sub -0.05) M(ʘ) , respectively, and the distance to the lens is D(L) = 7.6 (sup +1.2, sub -0.9) kpc. The planet is a circumstellar planet according to the wide solution, while it is a circumbinary planet according to the close solution.

Cheongho Han↗

NASA NTRS2019

OGLE-2016-BLG-0156: Microlensing Event with Pronounced Microlens-parallax Effects Yielding a Precise Lens Mass Measurement

We analyze the gravitational binary-lensing event OGLE-2016-BLG-0156, for which the lensing light curve displays pronounced deviations induced by microlens-parallax effects. The light curve exhibits three distinctive widely separated peaks and we find that the multiple-peak feature provides a very tight constraint on the microlens-parallax effect, enabling us to precisely measure the microlens parallax . All the peaks are densely and continuously covered from high-cadence survey observations using globally located telescopes and the analysis of the peaks leads to the precise measurement of the angular Einstein radius . From the combination of the measured and , we determine the physical parameters of the lens. It is found that the lens is a binary composed of two M dwarfs with masses M(1) = 0.18 ± 0.01 M(⊙) and M(2) = 0.16 ± 0.01 M(⊙) located at a distance D(L) = 1.35 ± 0.09 kpc. According to the estimated lens mass and distance, the flux from the lens comprises an important fraction, ~25%, of the blended flux. The bright nature of the lens combined with the high relative lens-source motion, μ = 6.94 ± 0.50 mas/yr, suggests that the lens can be directly observed from future high-resolution follow-up observations.

Youn Kil Jung↗