Planck-dust-allsky

KMT-2016-BLG-2052L: Microlensing Binary Composed of M Dwarfs Revealed from a Very Long Timescale Event

September 2018 • 2018ApJ...865...14H

Authors • Han, Cheongho • Jung, Youn Kil • Shvartzvald, Yossi • Albrow, Michael D. • Chung, Sun-Ju • Gould, Andrew • Hwang, Kyu-Ha • Kim, Doeon • Lee, Chung-Uk • Kim, Woong-Tae • Kim, Hyoun-Woo • Ryu, Yoon-Hyun • Shin, In-Gu • Yee, Jennifer C. • Kim, Chun-Hwey • Cha, Sang-Mok • Kim, Seung-Lee • Kim, Dong-Jin • Lee, Dong-Joo • Lee, Yongseok • Park, Byeong-Gon • Pogge, Richard W. • KMTNet Collaboration • Beichman, Charles • Bryden, Geoff • Calchi Novati, Sebastiano • Gaudi, B. Scott • Henderson, Calen B. • Matthew, T. P. • Jacklin, Savannah R. • UKIRT Microlensing Team

Abstract • We present the analysis of a binary microlensing event, KMT-2016-BLG-2052, for which the lensing-induced brightening of the source star lasted for two seasons. We determine the lens mass from the combined measurements of the microlens parallax, π E, and angular Einstein radius, θ E. The measured mass indicates that the lens is a binary composed of M dwarfs with masses of M 1 ∼ 0.34 M and M 2 ∼ 0.17 M . The measured relative lens-source proper motion of μ ∼ 3.9 mas yr-1 is smaller than ∼5 mas yr-1 of typical Galactic lensing events, while the estimated angular Einstein radius of θ E ∼ 1.2 mas is substantially greater than the typical value of ∼0.5 mas. Therefore, it turns out that the long timescale of the event is caused by the combination of the slow μ and large θ E rather than the heavy mass of the lens. From the simulation of Galactic lensing events with very long timescales (t E ≳ 100 days), we find that the probabilities that long timescale events are produced by lenses with masses ≥1.0 M and ≥3.0 M are ∼19% and 2.6%, respectively, indicating that events produced by heavy lenses comprise a minor fraction of long timescale events. The results indicate that it is essential to determine lens masses by measuring both π E and θ E in order to firmly identify heavy stellar remnants, such as neutron stars and black holes.

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Sebastiano Calchi Novati

Associate Scientist