Toward Measuring the Microlensing Event Rate in the Galactic Center. I. Event Detection from the UKIRT Microlensing Survey Data

Wen, Yongxin; Zang, Weicheng; Ma, Bo

doi:10.3847/1538-4365/acf932

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…The GBTDS will survey ≈2 deg 2 over 5 yr in the infrared wavelengths. In addition to benefiting from increased microlensing event rates in the infrared (e.g., Gould 1994;McGill et al 2019;Husseiniova et al 2021;Kaczmarek et al 2022;Luberto et al 2022;Kaczmarek et al 2024;Kondo et al 2023;Wen et al 2023), the GBTDS will take simultaneous photometry and astrometry at a 15 minute cadence during an observing season.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Astrometric Microlensing by Primordial Black Holes with the Roman Space Telescope

Fardeen,

McGill,

Perkins

et al. 2024

ApJ

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Primordial black holes (PBHs) could explain some fraction of dark matter and shed light on many areas of early-Universe physics. Despite over half a century of research interest, a PBH population has so far eluded detection. The most competitive constraints on the fraction of dark matter comprised of PBHs (f DM) in the (10−9–10)M ⊙ mass ranges come from photometric microlensing and bound f DM ≲ 10−2–10−1. With the advent of the Roman Space Telescope with its submilliarcsecond astrometric capabilities and its planned Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS), detecting astrometric microlensing signatures will become routine. Compared with photometric microlensing, astrometric microlensing signals are sensitive to different lens masses–distance configurations and contain different information, making it a complimentary lensing probe. At submilliarcsecond astrometric precision, astrometric microlensing signals are typically detectable at larger lens–source separations than photometric signals, suggesting a microlensing detection channel of pure astrometric events. We use a Galactic simulation to predict the number of detectable microlensing events during the GBTDS via this pure astrometric microlensing channel. Assuming an absolute astrometric precision floor for bright stars of 0.1 mas for the GBTDS, we find that the number of detectable events peaks at ≈103 f DM for a population of 1M ⊙ PBHs and tapers to ≈10f DM and ≈100f DM at 10−4 M ⊙ and 103 M ⊙, respectively. Accounting for the distinguishability of PBHs from stellar lenses, we conclude the GBTDS will be sensitive to a PBH population at f DM down to ≈10−1–10−3 for (10−1–102)M ⊙ likely yielding novel PBH constraints.

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